The Kurosaki Legacy
by Archontruth
Summary: The day Kurosaki Hisana was born was the day her father Ichigo was murdered. Raised in hiding by her surviving family and unaware of her true heritage, a fateful encounter will bring 16 year old Hisana face to face with the enemy that killed her father and took control of the Gotei 13.
1. Fate and Awakening

_Foreword:_

_Hello, dear readers! Welcome to my vision of the future of Bleach. If you like what you find here, please leave a review. If you don't like what you find, leave a review anyways and let me know how I can do better. I'm trying to improve my writing by making myself do it every day, so if you have suggestions on how I can improve my style, I'd like to hear from you!_

_**A Note on Canon:** I started writing this at the very beginning of the manga arc featuring the Vandenreich, and I already had a plot outline complete. As a result, this story is becoming AU from the canon of the manga after the Xcution Arc. As I write this, it appears that Tito has already killed off at least two characters who will still be alive in my story. I will continue to read the manga with eager anticipation, but will not incorprate any further developments from it into my story. So in Hisana's world, assume that the assault of the Vandenreich was repelled with fewer casualties than in the manga._

_**A Note on Language:** I do not speak Japanese, and when making up new names for zanpakuto, kido, etc. I'm relying on software translations. I try out different combinations to find the one that sounds coolest, not what's the most accurate. I've also found myself using a mix of anglicized Japanese and English names for things, whichever feels the most natural to me. So for example I say "zanpakuto" instead of "soul slayer" but "robe" or "uniform" rather than "shihakusho". If things come across unclear as a result, let me know and I'll work on it._

_Lastly, I don't own anything related to Bleach, Tito and his publisher do. (Not sure why it's necessary to put that there. No one's making money posting here, I hope. I'm doing this for practice and love of Bleach.)_

* * *

**Chapter One: Fate and Awakening**

_The Living World – Twenty Years after the Winter War_

It was a Friday in summer, and the sun beat down on the green hills. Insect noises from the nearby trees and rice patties filled the air. Sixteen year old Kurosaki Hisana climbed the hill, walking along the side of the raised, narrow road bordered by shady trees that snaked through the surrounding fields. Even in the shade it was hot enough that she perspired freely, but at least the school day was done, and soon she would be home. In her hands she carried bags from the village market with vegetables and tofu that would become dinner for herself, her mother Kurosaki Rukia, her adoptive father Urahara Kisuke, and her younger half-brother Urahara Tessai.

Ideally, she would have been biking up the hill, still an unpleasant prospect but faster than walking. Her parents probably thought she was riding home, because she hadn't gotten around to telling them that her second bike that year had been stolen from the schoolyard last week. At her stepfather's insistence she had invested in a sturdy lock and used it on the frame, but it hadn't helped. She couldn't keep an eye on the bike racks all day, and her bikes in particular always seemed to be targets for theft.

Hisana glanced over her shoulder at the small town in the valley below, home to her school, the stores that served the surrounding areas, and the train station connecting the town to the rest of Japan. Hisana felt a familiar surge of irritation. She liked school; it was her classmates that drove her crazy.

Diverting down a wooded path through a thicket of trees, Hisana sighed in relief, the slope behind her and home near. It didn't help that her parents were both as unusual as she was.

Hearing a ringing bell behind her, Hisana nimbly stepped aside as Tessai went zipping past on his bike, which only had to be replaced when he outgrew it. _It isn't fair,_ Hisana thought with a stab of irritation. Her ten year old half-brother had lots of friends even though he was visually more out of place than she was. He had unruly blond hair and striking pale eyes like his father Kisuke. Hisana more closely resembled her mother, with raven-black hair that fell down to her waist and expressive brown eyes. Hisana had her father's height, towering over her mother and taller even than her stepfather. She also had her father's metabolism, possessing a strong, slender build that put on muscle easily.

But Tessai had been born here, and Hisana had not. It didn't hurt that Tessai never lost a fight. Hisana didn't either, but martial prowess didn't do anything for a teenage girl's social standing. It was all very unfair.

"You're going to have to tell them eventually," Tessai piped up when Hisana trudged into the yard in front of their house.

"Quiet, brat," she snapped, shoving him with a shoulder as she stepped into the house, kicking off her shoes.

"They're going to find out anyways," Tessai insisted, following her down the hall towards the kitchen.

"And then what?" Hisana demanded, rounding on her little brother. "Those lazy cops down at the village koban won't do anything about it; their daughters are probably the ones cutting my locks and they don't like dad anyways. I don't want him to buy me another one, I'll just walk."

Tessai's eyes were wide by the end of the tirade. Hisana felt guilty instantly "Sorry, Tessai. I didn't mean to shout. Just… don't tell Mom or Dad. I'm fine with walking. "

"Okay," he said. They entered the kitchen, and Hisana started unpacking the groceries. Glancing at the clock, she saw that she had some time to do homework before she would have to start cooking dinner. She did most of the cooking now. Her mother was a fine cook, but it was hard for her to get around the kitchen, so Hisana had taken over most of the meal preparation by the time she was in middle school.

Tessai ducked into his room, and Hisana headed back to hers. As she passed her parent's bedroom she heard coughing, and stopped to kneel outside the sliding door. "Mom, can I get you anything?"

"Oh, you're home, Hisana," her mother said. "Come in, come in-" her words were broken off by another fit of coughing. Sliding the door open, Hisana entered her parents' bedroom. Rukia had opened the exterior screens, and sat contentedly in the warm breeze. In her left hand she held a cup of hot tea, sipping from it to soothe her throat. She turned to look at her daughter, a lovely smile crossing the right side of her face, her right eye sparking with welcome. The raven hair on the right side of her head was caught up in a simple braid that fell down her shoulder.

If the right side of Rukia's face was as lovely as when she had been a girl, the left side was a constant reminder of what life had taken from Hisana's mother. Heavy burn scars had rendered the left side of Rukia's face immobile, the hair on that half of her head gone. Her left eye was milky white, blind for as long as Hisana had been alive. The burns continued down the left side of her body to her waist before tapering off, and her left arm, the only one she had, was as scarred as her face. Her right arm ended in a stump above the elbow, severed the same day she had been burned, the day Hisana was born. Despite all of those wounds, Rukia's fragile constitution was more due to her internal injuries. A reflexive breath of the same fire that had scarred her had seared her throat and lungs, making breathing difficult, even with the medicinal teas that Urahara ensured she always had.

"How was school, dear?" Rukia asked.

"It was fine, mom. I got the best mark in the class on the English exam." Other than acing the test it had been as unpleasant as most days at school, but her mother certainly didn't need to know that. Besides, the term was almost over, and it was only one more year after that. Then she could find a university in the city, far away from the hateful people she had to tolerate now.

They made small talk for a little while, and then it was time for Hisana to go start her homework. She left her mother's presence, as she usually did, with a vague sense of guilt. If not for her, maybe her mother wouldn't have been so badly injured. If she hadn't been pregnant she may have been able to get away. True, the same gas explosion that burned Rukia had killed Hisana's father Ichigo, as well as her grandfather Isshin and aunt Yuzu, but the doubt had plagued Hisana ever since her parents had told her about the terrible accident at the Kurosaki Clinic the day she was born.

Hisana got some studying done, and then it was time to start dinner. The sun was fading from the sky and she was getting ready to boil the tofu when the faint noise of a motorcycle engine reached her ears, growing louder as it got closer.

"Dad's home!" Tessai shouted unnecessarily as he ran past the kitchen and out the front door. A faint smile traced its way across Hisana's face as she watched her stepfather ride into the clearing in front of their house and bring his motorcycle to a stop, removing his helmet and shaking his head of unruly, pale blond hair. Tessai made a running leap at his father, who caught the boy up in his arms as they exchanged their typically boisterous welcome.

Dinner was soon ready, and the four of them gathered around the table to eat. Kisuke talked about work, Hisana and Tessai talked about school, and Rukia told them about a trip she'd taken with some friends earlier in the day to the larger town a few stops down the rail line to shop for summer outfits. Hisana and Kisuke exchanged a silent look of amusement. It always entertained them in a rueful way how Tessai and Rukia fit in so well here, while they both stuck out like sore thumbs.

Tessai had the same interests as the other boys his age, and everyone liked Rukia, even if they weren't crazy about her husband. Kisuke, on the other hand, was just too different from the other men in the area, most of whom were quiet farmers. He was loud, opinionated, eccentric, and it didn't help that he was the wealthiest man in the area, courtesy of the chain of stores all over the region that he owned and operated.

Hisana's difficulties with her peers mostly had to do with her choice of hobby. If she had been the kind of girl who enjoyed tea ceremonies or volleyball or swimming she would have fit in better, but instead she joined the kendo team. Her school's kendo team was award-winning with a distinguished history, and it had never had a female member until Hisana. They wouldn't have let her in if the law didn't say that had to, and they would have found a way to get rid of her by now if they hadn't discovered that she was a prodigy. She was better than any of the boys in the club, better than the instructors, and had already brought home two regional championship trophies. They all resented her, but they tolerated her presence because she was a winner.

When dinner was over, Rukia retired to her room, Tessai went to play, and Kisuke helped Hisana clean up the kitchen. When they were done, he looked at Hisana with a faint smile. "When you're done with your homework, come out to my workshop, I have something for you."

Hisana blinked in surprise. "Okay, dad," she said. She went to her room, and got to work. It was dark outside and the insects were loud outside her open window when she closed her books with a sigh. Making her way to the back door, she stepped out into the night.

The lights were on in Kisuke's workshop, a separate building connected to the house by a covered and raised wooden walkway. Hisana headed out and tapped on the door. She heard a banging sound, then her father's shout, "Come in!"

Hisana made her way inside, navigating around a few of her father's larger experiments. She didn't know what most of his junk did, beyond the motorcycles in various states of disarray. Those she did enjoy. Kisuke had started teaching her to ride, and she looked forward to having one of her own.

Kisuke was at his work table, and he turned to Hisana with a smile. "May I see your flex band?"

Hisana nodded, and peeled the band of flexible plastic off of her wrist. When she had been born, cellular phones had still been blocky, rigid devices. Now they still had screens manipulated by touch, but the form had changed entirely. Her stepfather stroked the edge of Hisana's flex band in a certain way, and it unfolded itself, first into a flatter, curved panel, and then further into a flat, semitransparent surface that lit up as it powered on. His own flex band was already fully deployed, and he tapped away at both of them, transferring an application from his to Hisana's. When he was done he coaxed Hisana's flex band back into its bracelet shape and handed it back to her. When she put it back on it stayed active, displaying a small map of area, with a blinking arrow pointing off to the wooded hills to the west. "What's this?" Hisana asked.

"I thought it prudent to invest in a GPS locator for your bike that can be activated if it's lost," Kisuke said nonchalantly. "I thought you might find it useful."

Hisana saw the wry smile on her stepfather's face and gave him a sheepish look. "You noticed?"

"It was hard not to. You and Tessai usually drop them wherever it's convenient." he replied. "You're a smart girl; you can decide what to do with that information." That said Kisuke turned back to his work, humming tunelessly.

Hisana left her father to his work, glancing at the map on her wrist. _What do I want to do? I want my bike back._ With a hard smile, she headed to her room to change.

A few hours of hiking later, the glow of Hisana's flex band told her she was close, crouching at the tree line. Out in the country it was truly dark at night. She was navigating by the light of the moon and a flashlight she's brought with her. Ahead of her the trees ended, and the dark skeleton of a building rose up above her. The old warehouse had been used to store crops, but it had been shuttered years ago and its contents transferred to another building further down the valley. Now it was rarely visited. _Except, apparently, by bike thieves_, Hisana concluded. It wasn't a bad place to ditch a stolen bike. It wouldn't look out of place if found, and tracing the thief would be impossible.

Remaining motionless, Hisana waited and listened. Only noises of insects and the nearby stream were heard. Something felt slightly off to Hisana, but there were no sounds of people, so Hisana almost jumped out of her skin when she heard a quiet voice behind her. "Don't go in there, onee-sama. It's a bad place."

Whirling, Hisana's hand was wrapped around the kendo sword at her waist she'd brought with her just in case before she saw who it was and relaxed. Right there was the pale, translucent figure of a small boy, perhaps six or seven years of age, dressed in plain clothes. Extending from his chest was a broken chain.

Hisana recognized his face after a few moments. It had been in the paper, next to his obituary. He had drowned in the nearby stream, a few kilometers away. She breathed a sigh of relief. "You scared me, kiddo! What are you doing out here?" She patted the boy on the head, and he smiled.

Ghosts had always seemed drawn to Hisana, ever since she'd started seeing them a few years ago. At first, she had feared that she was hallucinating, that something was wrong with her. She'd been close to confiding her fears to her parents when she met a pair of ghosts, an old couple who had died shortly before, who told her things she found out later were true, things she had no way of knowing, consciously or unconsciously. Forced to accept that ghosts were real and she could see them, Hisana resolved to keep it a secret. She had been old enough to know no one would believe her, and her parents would just think the same thing she had at first; that there was something wrong with her. So she ignored ghosts unless she was alone and only tried to talk to them or help them in private. It wasn't hard out in the country, she rarely ran into them and there weren't many. Trips to the cities had been more challenging recently, though. Densely populated areas had a lot more ghosts!

"What's your name, kid?"

"Takashi," he said.

"Why do you say I shouldn't go in there? My bike's in there, I have to go get it."

"It's a scary place. My mama always said it was haunted," he said in a trembling voice.

Despite the humor inherent in a ghost worrying about a haunted warehouse, Hisana kept a straight face. A lot of ghosts didn't know they were dead, and Hisana saw no point in distressing them with that information. Anyways, helping them move on was a lot simpler than trying to explain their situation to them.

Hisana always got a vague sense of… not wrongness, but _imbalance_ when she met a ghost. It made sense; dead souls didn't belong in the world of the living. She'd discovered how to help them by accident, but now she could do it on purpose. Kneeling in front of the boy, she placed her hands on his shoulder, and focused on the imbalance, on making it right. The little boy's eyes widened, and then his form faded away. Before it dissolved entirely, she heard his voice, faintly. "Thanks, onee-sama." Then he was gone, along with the sense of imbalance. The first time she'd helped a ghost move along was by accident. The ghost of a young man she had met in the city was badly hurt by… something. Hisana wasn't sure what could hurt a ghost. When she had touched him, something changed. His wounds closed, and then he faded away. Now she could heal ghosts and help them move on just by touching them and wanting to help them. She didn't know why it worked, but it did.

Getting up and dusting off her knees, Hisana made her way towards the abandoned warehouse. The tracker led her right to her bike, leaning up against the wall. There were actually three bikes here, all of them hers. Muttering under her breath, Hisana picked up her most recent one, deciding to leave the others to retrieve later. She was headed for the door when she heard a loud rumbling from far above. "Oh no!…" she said in dismay. She hadn't checked the weather before she left the house. Sure enough, as she looked outside, the skies broke open and rain began pouring down in sheets. Hisana went to the doorway, watching the downpour with dismay. Evening summer storms usually lasted for hours. "At least I'm not out in the woods," she said with a sigh.

Unfolding her flex band, Hisana molded it into its phone configuration and tapped away at the small keyboard, writing a message to her father. "Found my bike, waiting out the rain, will be home when it stops." She pressed SEND, and put the band back on. "Might as well get some practice in," she said to herself, drawing the wooden kendo sword from her waist and starting to go through some forms. "Ha!" the wooden blade whistled through the air, accompanying the steady drumming of the rain as Hisana practiced.

* * *

_It prowled the forest at night. It hunted, its muzzle close to the ground, following the trail. It had scented its meal near the brook, tasty, fresh and young. It followed the path of its prey with the sureness of instinct and practice. It was small, lean, fast. It wasn't as big as its brothers in the cities, and didn't get to eat as often, but it didn't have to worry every day about becoming the prey itself, either._

_On four legs it twined its way between the trees, muzzle full of teeth close to the ground. The faintly glowing eyes in its angular white mask that formed a lizard-like shape had no trouble seeing in the blackness of the forest. This was its home._

_It followed the trail for another quarter of an hour before coming to a stop in surprise, its long, sinuous tail that ended in a wicked spike lashing in irritation. The tasty scent of dinner vanished at the edge of the tree line! Sniffing around the area, it paused, pondering. There was a trace of another meal, even sweeter than the one it tracked, but the scent went nowhere. It was only present where dinner had vanished._

_Its eyes narrowed nervously, and it glanced skyward. Was one of the hunters from the city around? It was small and clever and had grown skilled at hiding its visual and spiritual presence, but it never let its guard down. While looking upward, it noticed the gathering clouds. It whipped its tail in distaste. It hated the rain. Slinking out from the trees, it climbed the side of the abandoned structure, slipping in through an upper window to the area where it made its nest. The rain began to fall, and it shuddered in relief, curling up to wait out the storm before it would go looking for something else to eat. It heard some odd noises below it as it dozed, but it didn't smell anything interesting or threatening, so it ignored the sounds and the rain._

* * *

Moroyoshi Nikan sailed through the air, the accelerated movements of the hoho technique propelling him along at a speedy clip over the dark countryside of rural Japan below. As the shinigami assigned to the closest large town near this stretch of farms and forests, the whole area was within his area of responsibility. For most of the time he had been assigned to this area of the real world, this sparsely populated region hadn't been much trouble. He rarely had to come perform soul burials, and he hadn't found a Hollow out here in almost a decade.

But recently, something strange had been going on in this quiet rural valley. He suspected that his soul pager, a fairly venerable model, was starting to pick up false signals, because half a dozen times in the last two years, he had made his way out here from the city only to discover that the soul in question was already gone. After the first few times he'd scoured the area for a Hollow, and his ability to sense reiatsu was excellent, but he had never found one. He'd put in a request to the 12th Division for a new soul pager, but they hadn't gotten back to him yet.

Nikan's pager beeped as if on cue, and he skidded to a halt in midair, pulling it from his sash with a growl. Sure enough, the lost soul he'd been headed towards was gone. "Damn it!" Nikan yelled, resisting the urge to hurl the traitorous device at the ground below. He was going to have to find someone from the technical division and bug them until they gave him a new device.

Nikan was about to turn back and head for the city lights on the horizon when something odd tickled at the edge of his spiritual senses. It was so faint that most shinigami wouldn't have felt it at all, so distant that he almost discounted it. But he decided to check it out since he was already here. Closing his eyes, he focused on the elusive sensation. It was weak, the merest flickering of power, and it didn't feel like anything Nikan had felt before. It wasn't a Hollow, shinigami or lost spirit. It was something else. Curiosity piqued, Nikan set off towards the faint sensation.

* * *

Hisana moved smoothly through her forms, and the sound of the rain, the swing of the sword, and the perfect solitude free of distraction centered her. It felt like meditation when she was able to practice like this, body and mind moving in perfect unison, centered and empty. She was alone with the elegant simplicity of the forms and the swish of the blade. Time lost meaning.

Hisana felt the familiar sensation of warmth in her chest. In her hardest bouts, and at times like this when she was one with the sword, something bubbled up inside her. It felt good, warm, like her mother's hugs, her stepfather's laugh, and her brother's smile. It was pure and transcendent and so right she never felt like questioning it.

Always before, the match had ended or the practice had been interrupted, but here there were no distractions or interruptions. Hisana had been practicing for more than an hour, but she felt fresh, rested, renewed. Her eyes drifted shut, and she moved by instinct.

* * *

_Its head rose as it woke from its sleep, and it sniffed at the damp air. Something had changed. It smelled something… delicious. The air held the tantalizing scent of a new meal. Rising to its feet, it padded out of its nest and into the halls of the upper level of the empty building. The morsel it scented was close. Prowling silently, it followed its nose._

* * *

When it started raining, Nikan just lowered the brim of his wide straw hat and kept going. The closer he moved to the strange reiatsu, the stronger it seemed to get. It was coming from beyond the area where the humans lived. He came to a stop in the air above a huge, abandoned building. Whatever he was sensing was inside. Dropping to the ground, he found a door and entered the abandoned warehouse, hand on the hilt of his zanpakuto. His steps guided him into one large room on the far side of the building, and when he entered, he came to a stop, eyes widening in surprise.

A human girl was alone in the room, practicing kendo forms with a wooden blade. But Nikan's attention was riveted on her spiritual presence. A faint golden glow of reiatsu was rising from her skin, surrounding her in a halo of yellow light. It was unlike anything he had ever seen or sensed before.

Nikan stared for only a few moments before something else intruded on his consciousness; a familiar whiff of a reiatsu foul enough to make him want to gag, the seeming antithesis of the reiatsu belonging to the girl before him. _Hollow!_ Drawing his zanpakuto silently, Nikan searched for the source of the Hollow reiatsu, and realized that it was coming from a room above him with windows looking down on the girl. Even as he looked up one of the windows shattered, and a lithe, dark shape with a white mask flew through, headed straight for the human girl with the strange reiatsu.

"Damn!" Nikan swore, propelling himself towards her with all the speed he could manage.

* * *

Hisana started to feel a new sense of wrongness a moment before she heard glass breaking above her. Her eyes snapped open just as crimson blur came to a stop in front of her. In one crystallized instant she saw an open hand coming at her, and then it connected with her chest, and she was falling backwards.

Even as gravity pulled her down, Hisana watched the blur resolve itself into a short, muscular man with dark hair and eyes in a squashed, scarred face. He wore a conical straw hat, crimson robes and straw sandals and held a real sword, the steel shimmering in the moonlight. After shoving her he didn't even look at her, turning back the way he'd came and raising his sword just in time to slash at the animalistic figure that passed through the space Hisana had just occupied. The sword struck a glancing blow to the creature's white face, while its dark claws raked the man's side as it passed him. The creature landed and turned on the swordsman in red, who kept his blade up in a guard even as he pressed his free hand to his side, wincing in pain.

The creature turned, regarding them both with glowing yellow eyes. Its white face was like a lizard's all angles and teeth, married to a body like a panther with clawed feet, and a winding, serpentine tail that lashed in anger as its gaze moved from Hisana to her rescuer, who scowled at the creature, then charged it. The creature was already moving, but Hisana still saw a deep slice appear in its flank, black blood flying. It howled in pain, an unearthly sound. The man with a sword was past it now, turning back. The creature rounded on him as well, and they lunged at each other. The creature ducked under his slash and sank its teeth deep into his leg. The swordsman cried out in pain, but managed to raise his sword and stab it down into the creature's neck. It stiffened, and then collapsed with a guttural sigh.

The fight happened so quickly Hisana didn't have time to react to it, just watching where she had fallen. But when the swordsman staggered away from the creature, falling to the ground as his wounded leg buckled, she was spurred to action. Rising to her feet, she approached him cautiously. "Are you okay?"

The swordsman, gripping his leg, sweating and obviously in pain, looked up as she approached. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised you can see me," he muttered. "I've never seen a reiatsu like yours."

Hisana blinked. Then the analytical part of her brain started working, and she took in his garb, and the appearance of the thing he had fought, and it clicked. "You're a ghost?"

He started to laugh, and then winced as the laughter aggravated the cuts on his ribs. "No, I'm not." He pulled aside the cloth covering his leg, wincing at the set of deep punctures and the blood seeping from them.

"Oh no, you're really hurt!" Hisana exclaimed, kneeling beside him.

"I've had worse," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "It'll heal." Reaching into his pouch, he pulled out some bandages.

This close to him, Hisana could tell that even if he said he wasn't a ghost, he felt like one. "Let me help you," she insisted, laying a hand on his shoulder. His eyes widened and he started to pull away, but his wounds slowed him down. Hisana focused on making him _right_, just like she did with the ghosts, and felt the balance shift within him.

Something different happened this time, though. There was a blinding flash of light, and Hisana was thrown backwards as _something_ flowed back from the swordsman into her, altering _her_ balance.

Even though she had felt herself falling back, when Hisana's vision cleared she was on her feet. Feet that were wrapped in white socks and straw sandals. Hisana blinked, looking in shock at her outfit. Her school uniform was gone. She was wearing robes like the swordsman, but they were black instead of crimson. A sword sheath was belted to her waist, and her sword was a familiar weight in her hand.

_My sword?_ Hisana looked over to where she had fallen. Her kendo blade was still where she had dropped it. Looking at what was in her hand, she gasped. She was holding a real katana, perfectly sized for her. The blade, guard and pommel were a golden metal that gleamed softly in the moonlight, and the hilt was wrapped in white leather.

"W-what's going on?" Hisana said, her voice shaking. Her body felt… different. Lighter, and stronger

The swordsman in the crimson robes was clambering to his feet, his wounds gone. Pressing a hand to his forehead, he rubbed his eyes. "What did you do, girl? Pain's gone, but I feel like I've had one too many…" his voice trailed off when he looked at her, his jaw dropping. Then he looked at something behind her, and his face went pale.

Turning around to follow his gaze, Hisana's mind didn't process what she was seeing at first. She was looking at herself, dressed in her school uniform, lying on the floor, motionless. "Oh. Oh crap! Am I dead?" she said, her voice squeaking at the end as she stared at her own body.

She heard a heavy sigh from the man behind her. "No, you're not dead," he answered slowly. She turned back to him. He had a mournful look on his face. "What's your name, girl?" he asked.

"H-hisana," she stammered.

"That's a nice name," he said sadly. "The man who commands my division had a wife with that name."

"Had? What happened to her?" Hisana asked. She wasn't sure why she asked that question. Maybe because everything else was so bizarre that she'd latched on to the one sane thing in the conversation.

"She died," the crimson swordsman told her. "My name is Nikan." He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing again. "Damn it. For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

A chill went through Hisana. Suddenly she got the sense she was in more danger than she had been from the strange creature. "Sorry for what?"

"Those black robes you're wearing mean you have to die, Hisana. I wish it didn't have to be this way," Nikan said. Then he was a blur of red robes and glittering steel coming straight at her.

Instinct and years of practice saved Hisana as her mind reeled. Guarding against an oncoming strike was muscle memory, and her arms had her golden sword up in a block before she was consciously aware of it. Blade met blade, and the shock of the impact was stunning. Nikan hit much harder than any opponent she'd faced before. Her palms stung, and the force of the blow pushed her whole body backwards. He blurred again, disappearing to the right, and Hisana whirled, turning her sword parallel to the ground to catch a falling strike just inches from her face. "What are you doing?" she yelled, terrified. This wasn't a match with wooden swords and a referee. He was really trying to kill her!

"Following orders." Nikan's expression was sad, troubled. It didn't slow his blade, though. The tip of his sword licked at her, fast as a serpent as he struck again and again, and it was all Hisana could do just to stay alive from one moment to the next. He was so much stronger that she couldn't meet his swings directly; she had to angle her parries to guide his swings away from her body as best she could.

Then one of his blows slipped past her guard, and she felt an icy shock as his blade kissed her left arm, opening a long, shallow slice in her skin. She felt warm blood soaking her sleeve and running down her arm. "Please, stop!" she cried, dancing back, trying to get some space between them. He kept pace, not letting up for a moment.

"I can't," he said over the ring of blades. He wasn't even breathing hard! Hisana was gasping for breath, sweat beading on her brow. "It's the law. Any shinigami wearing the black in the world of the living must die, even if she is a kid and a substitute."

"Shinigami? Substitute? I don't know what you're talking about!" Hisana panted.

"That's why this is so sad. No one should have to die for an accident of their birth," he said regretfully. "But the law is the law." Then he blurred again, off to the left. Hisana turned as fast as she could, her aching arms raising her sword to block. But he wasn't there. Even as her mind processed that, she moved by instinct, throwing herself sideways. She had just started moving when an icy shock ran through her right side. Looking down, she saw the tip of his sword, poking out from between her ribs below and to the right of her breast. It had pierced through her body, and even as she saw it her momentum caused the blade to slice through the muscle and skin on its way out, turning the puncture into a deep gash. Hisana fell, landing on the body of the creature Nikan had killed. Then the pain really hit her, more pain than she had ever felt in her life, and she screamed, her sword falling from her hand as she clutched at the deep wound, feeling her blood seep around her hand and down her side. She was hyperventilating, and each breath brought more pain.

Hisana looked up and saw Nikan standing over her, the first quarter of his blade dripping with her blood. "I didn't think you'd move fast enough to survive that one, kid. You're fast."

Hisana didn't feel fast, or skilled. She just hurt, tears welling up in her eyes as she saw him raise his blade. _This is it,_ Hisana realized. _I'm going to die. _The blade started to fall. Hisana felt the body of the creature vibrate beneath her, heard a low growl. She saw the empty eye socket of its white mask flare yellow from the corner of her eye. Then a sinuous black line shot past her, straight at Nikan. The shinigami saw the strike, but his momentum was against him. Hisana watched in disbelief as the razor sharp tip of the creature's tail sank into Nikan's chest, running him through.

Nikan remained motionless for a moment, and then shuddered, blood pouring from his lips. He summoned the strength to bring his sword down on the creature's head, shattering its mask. With a howl, the ugly thing dissipated into thin air. Without its tail through his chest, he lost his grip on his sword and fell to the floor, gasping and coughing up more blood when he hit.

In spite of the pain she felt with each breath and the blood trickling down her side, Hisana crawled over to him. Looking up at her, he smiled. Nikan looked relieved. "I should be careful… what I wish for," he gasped, teeth stained red with his blood, which now poured from the chest wound. "But I'm glad."

"What do you mean?" Hisana asked him, wincing as pain flared up her side.

"When I saw those robes of yours, I prayed for a way to avoid having to do my duty. Fate works in strange ways, sometimes. Never seen a Hollow… save a life… before." His words trailed off, and when he finished, the light left his eyes, and his head fell back.

Hisana looked at Nikan for a moment before she realized he was dead. Her thoughts were a blur, her mind numb from one too many shocks in close succession. The pain in her side was what brought Hisana to her senses. _I'm bleeding badly. I need to get help, or I'm going to die too._ Forcing herself into motion, Hisana tore long strips from the dead man's robes, each movement agonizing. Quickly bandaging the gash, she grabbed the hilt of her sword, using it to climb to her feet. Her head swam, but she gritted her teeth and refused to pass out.

Using the golden blade as a cane, she started walking. _Don't scream… don't pass out… don't die. _Hisana repeated it to herself as a mantra, as her feet guided her home.

* * *

Urahara Kisuke absently took a sip of his tea from the cup on the workbench. "Aya!" he cried in dismay, realizing it was cold and bitter. He's just poured it, hadn't he? Glancing at the clock, he realized he had poured it two hours ago. It was almost four in the morning. Noticing the time made him realize how tired he was, once his focus on his work dissipated. Yawning, he put away the gigai parts he had been working on in his safe, making sure to scramble the code. He didn't need to be explaining to his kids, or worse a neighbor, what he was doing with very realistic replicas of human body parts. The people around here already thought he was weird.

He was just about to leave when he heard footsteps on the walkway outside. Kisuke frowned, sensing an unfamiliar, flickering reiatsu outside. Concentrating, he confirmed that his own reiatsu suppression technique was in place. The suppression technique equalized the reiatsu level just below his skin with that of the air just above it, making him invisible to anyone who could sense reiatsu. He and Rukia had been using the technique constantly for sixteen years, and it was instinct. They were even suppressing their reiatsu in their sleep.

No one who could threaten his family could possibly find him, and even weak as Kisuke was now, whoever was outside was weaker, their reiatsu level fading even as he focused on it. But he hadn't survived running and hiding with a family in tow for a decade and a half by being careless. His hand slipped beneath his tunic, ready to grasp any number of small portable "solutions", some of which he was pretty sure could give even a captain some trouble.

Then the door slid open, and Kisuke's heart almost stopped. Hisana staggered into the light, dressed in a shinigami's black robes and leaning on a golden zanpakuto. Her face was white as a sheet, and she was covered in blood. "Dad... I think… I'm in trouble…" then her eyes rolled up in her head and she passed out, falling forward into her stepfather's arms.


	2. A New Beginning

**Chapter Two: A New Beginning**

Afternoon sunlight streamed into the workshop from its small window, falling across Urahara Kisuke, who sat slumped in front of his desk in his workshop, brooding. Rage and exhaustion warred for supremacy in his mind, and his face was set into a grim expression. For sixteen years he'd lived with one constant in his life: keeping Kurosaki Hisana safe. He had done it, too. He had kept Rukia and her daughter out of the hands of the most powerful and relentless enemy he had encountered in his centuries of life. He had hidden them beyond the sight of that enemy and his minions, the shinigami of Seretei he had subverted to his cause.

It terrified Kisuke to realize how close he had come to losing his adoptive daughter the previous night. If Hisana hadn't found her way home, he doubted he would have been able to save her. It was only in this workshop, surrounded by all the tools and tricks of a lifetime of experience that he had been able to stabilize her fading reiatsu and tend to her grievous injury.

Almost as painful as seeing his daughter in that state was telling Rukia and watching her hold her unconscious daughter, tears streaming from her one good eye. There had been no time for questions then. Once Hisana's condition was stable, Kisuke had to move on to other concerns; recovering his daughter's corporeal body from wherever she had left it, and finding whoever had dared to try and kill her. When he had left Rukia at her daughter's side, the bleak expression of sadness and rage on his wife's face made him pity any red robed shinigami who tried to enter their home.

Kisuke had followed Hisana's trail of reiatsu and blood back to the abandoned warehouse, where he had gotten some answers in the form of Hisana's immobile body lying near the remains of a crimson-garbed shinigami in a room full of dissipated Hollow reiatsu. By the time he got his daughter's body home and eased her soul back into it he was exhausted, but there was more work to be done. Leaving his own body behind, he made much better time back to the warehouse, but carrying the dead shinigami all the way to town and leaving his corpse to be found far from their home was a grueling trip, even for a master of shunpo. There was a time when such an exertion would have been effortless for Kisuke, but that time was gone, never to return.

Glancing up at the cane leaning against his desk, Kisuke sighed. Once it had been a powerful weapon and a constant companion; his better half, Benihime. Now it was just a walking stick, and his zanpakuto's voice was gone from his life. He had mourned Benihime's loss every bit as much as the other friends he had lost on that horrible day sixteen years ago. Ever since then the sword cane had featured an adornment that none of his old comrades would have recognized; a deceptively delicate looking silver mesh that wound around it in a lattice where the curved hilt met the scabbard.

Kisuke rubbed his eyes and focused. He needed to sleep, but there was still one more thing to do before he could rest. Powering up his desk terminal, he placed a video call to a recipient on the other side of the world who would be none too pleased to hear from him and even less pleased with his news. He waited as a connection was established and the system attempted to get the attention of the other party. He placed the call at an emergency priority, which would prompt whatever communications device was closest to her to do whatever it took to get her attention.

A few minutes later the wait screen faded into a video image of a darkened bedroom set up in a Western style with a king sized bed and other furnishings. Sitting in the chair at center screen was an attractive Japanese woman in her thirties, short and with an athletic build. Her long hair was in disarray and she was wrapped in a dark blue kimono. She rubbed her eyes and then squinted at the screen. "Whoever you are, you'd better have a damn good reason for calling me at this hour." When her eyes could handle the glare coming off of her screen, she frowned. "Oh. It's _you_. Goodbye." She started reaching for the terminate button.

"Your niece almost died last night, Karin" Kisuke said flatly.

Kurosaki Karin froze, and then pulled her hand back, her eyes blazing with anger. "You worthless, miserable bastard! You had one job: keeping her safe. ONE JOB!"

"I've done that job," Kisuke replied, pushing down his own anger. Getting in a screaming match with Hisana's aunt wouldn't accomplish anything. "She's inherited her father's gifts after all and that I can't protect her from."

"Then you haven't been doing your job, Kisuke. Ichigo's reiatsu was so strong the whole city felt it for years even before his power emerged. How could you have missed that?"

"I don't care if you insult my intelligence, but don't insult Rukia's," he retorted coldly. "We've watched Hisana like hawks every day since she was born for the faintest trace of reiatsu, and there was _nothing_. But she has her father's luck as well as his abilities, because she managed to leave her body with a fully formed zanpakuto and stumble into a fight with a red robe and a Hollow in a single night."

Karin's face went pale. "Then they know about her?"

Kisuke shook his head. "I'd be running, not calling you, if they did. I'll need to get the details out of Hisana when she wakes up, but it looks like the red shinigami and the Hollow managed to kill each other. The red robe almost killed her in the process."

Karin was silent for a moment. "If she's out of danger, what do you want from me, then?"

"She'll never be out of danger now, not truly. You know what I want from you, Karin. Hisana needs your help. She's a substitute shinigami like her father. Like you. Neither Rukia or I can teach her everything she's going to need to know to survive, now that she's come into her own."

Karin laughed. There was no humor in it. "Oh, this is ironic. Now you want me to come protect Hisana?" She leaned forward, eyes blazing. "I remember a time when I wanted to come protect my brother's only child, and you wouldn't let me. I remember you got my name placed on some Japanese government watch list so I _couldn't even come home_. They buried my father and my sister without me. Now you want me back?"

Kisuke shook his head. "I need you to teach her how to protect herself, Karin; and I remember something different. I remember an angry college student with still-developing shinigami powers, grieving the death of her entire family, who was hell bent on coming back to Karakura Town and getting herself killed looking for a fight she had no chance of winning." He lowered his head, speaking quietly, his voice raw. "I couldn't save Isshin or Yuzu from that monster. Keeping you alive and keeping Hisana safe were the only things I could do for Ichigo."

"Spare me, Kisuke. It was my choice and you took it away from me. I hate your guts, so don't expect me to pity you." Karin leaned back, rubbing her temples. "I have a life here in America now. David and I are getting married this winter. Not that you care."

"Congratulations," Kisuke said. "I apologize, Karin. You're right; I have no place asking anything of you. I'm sorry for waking you." He reached for the button to end the call.

"Wait," Karin said. "I didn't say I wasn't coming. Ichigo and Yuzu would never forgive me if I didn't, and it will be nice to see Hisana again. You haven't brought her over to visit in years. So how am I supposed to get back into Japan? I'm on the no fly list, remember?"

"Just buy a ticket," Kisuke replied. "Within the next twenty-four hours you should receive a very sincere apology from the Japanese Foreign Ministry regarding the unfortunate mix up. It was a different Kurosaki Karin, apparently."

Karin stared at him for a moment. "You son of a bitch," she said, anger and admiration warring in her voice. "I've spent a decade and the resources of the biggest law firm in Los Angeles fighting that ban and you could have undone it at any time?" She shook her head. "You've got balls, Kisuke, I'll give you that. I'll send you my itinerary once I've made the arrangements. Expect me in a few days." Her eyes glinted dangerously. "If you don't keep her safe until I get there, I'll kill you. You know that, right?"

"If she's not safe when you get here, I'll already be dead," Kisuke answered flatly before ending the call.

* * *

Kurosaki Karin sat back in her seat in her dark bedroom in the suburbs of Los Angeles, staring silently at the blank screen of her terminal for a moment. Kisuke's call had dredged up a lot of memories that she tried not to dwell on anymore, for her own sanity.

The last call in the middle of the night from Japan had been sixteen years ago. It was a police detective, who told Karin that her father, brother and sister were all dead in a gas explosion at the Kurosaki Clinic. In the hours after that call, knowing that the last "gas explosion" had been a cover for shinigami activity, she had prayed that they were just wrong. Then Kisuke managed to reach her and dashed her hopes. They were gone along with most of her brother's allies. He'd told her to stay in America, at college, where it was safe. When she refused and tried to go home just days later, Kisuke had worked his magic and they wouldn't even let her on the plane.

The only time in all the years since that she had seen her niece had been when Kisuke or Rukia brought her to visit, something they were paranoid about, since it involved moving through areas of shinigami activity to get to an airport. In recent years she had been able to keep up with Hisana through social networks, email and video calls. The girl reminded her so much of Ichigo and Yuzu sometimes that it brought tears to her eyes. Despite her anger at Kisuke, there was no way she could stay away when her niece was in danger. If Hisana had been blessed and cursed with her father's powers, Karin had to be there. There was no one else left to teach her niece how to be a substitute shinigami and survive in a spirit world that the red robes ruled.

A familiar pair of muscled arms slid around Karin's shoulders, and Davis's stubble rubbed against her cheek as he kissed her. "So what was that all about?" The man behind her asked sleepily.

"I have to go home, to Japan. My niece joined the family business and almost died in the same night."

The man behind her went still for a moment. He was the only non-shinigami in the world who knew the truth of Karin's past. "A Hollow?"

Karin shook her head. "A red robe, apparently. She wears the black, and she had the bad fortune to run into one." Karin sighed, reaching over her shoulder to run her hand through his fine, short hair. "I'm sorry David. I know this is the worst time possible, but she needs my help. I have to go."

"Of course you do, Karin. Family's important," David said, kissing her cheek again. "You wouldn't be the woman I love and want to marry if you didn't need to go."

"I'm probably going to be there for a while," she warned him. "Your father's going to be furious. I'm going to have to take a leave of absence, and he's expecting me to be there for the Windusky and Steele cases." Making the best of being stuck in the United States, Karin had gone to law school after graduation. There, she had started dating a fellow student, David Crane, son of the founding partner at one of LA's biggest law firms. She worked there now, and if anyone had believed at first that sleeping with the bosses' son had gotten her the job, they knew better now.

"He'll survive the disappointment," David assured her. "He knows that family comes first. Besides, he'll be more upset with me. He's going to have to find someone else to hold the hands of the contracts department, too."

Karin turned around in her chair, startled. "You don't need to come, David. You're close to being a partner. The partners won't be happy if you go."

He looked at her seriously. "They can take me off of the partner track then. They can fire me if they want; I'm still coming with you. If you're going to go protect your niece from the red robes, I'm coming to protect you."

Karin got a dangerous look in her eyes, the fire in her that David loved. "I don't need your protection, David."

He grinned. "Maybe not, but try to stop me from coming anyways."

Her expression softened. "Thank you, David. I love you."

He kissed her, passionately, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. "I love you, too." When he leaned back, there was a hard edge to his expression. "Besides, I'd never pass up a chance to fight the red robes on their home turf."

Karin sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. "Since my niece has my brother's luck, I'm sure we'll have plenty of chances."

* * *

Levering himself up from the chair, Kisuke left his workshop and headed into the house. Rukia hadn't moved from her place by Hisana's bedside when he entered his daughter's room. "How's she doing?" he asked, kneeling beside her and resting his hand on her shoulder.

Rukia looked up at him, relieved. "Her color's getting better. I got some broth into her at lunch time." She tried to hide it, but he could see the fear in her eye. "What are we going to do?" Rukia said quietly.

Kisuke hugged her tightly to him. "What we've always done. We're going to protect her."

They sat beside Hisana for a time, silent. Then Rukia asked the question that had been on Kisuke's mind as well. "I'm not one to question good fortune, but how is she doing that? How is she suppressing her reiatsu?"

"I don't know. It shouldn't be possible," Kisuke admitted. He and Rukia had mastered the technique for suppressing their reiatsu, but they were both experienced shinigami and accomplished kido masters with developed fine control of their reiatsu. Even so, Rukia hadn't perfected the technique for years after he taught it to her, years during which she slept wrapped in his stealth cloak every night for fear of her reiatsu being sensed before she mastered maintaining the technique even in her sleep.

Yet Hisana slept right in front of them, her reiatsu invisible. It had been faintly present while she was bleeding out in spirit form, but as soon as they had put her soul back in her body, all sense of her had vanished. Thinking about it, Kisuke realized that to have emerged from her body with a fully formed zanpakuto she must have been suppressing her reiatsu without even knowing she had any for years! It was a mystery, but one for another day. A jaw-cracking yawn escaped him, and Rukia glanced at him. "You haven't slept in two days. Go get some rest."

Kisuke wanted to object, but saw the wisdom in his wife's words. If he stayed awake much longer he'd be too tired to protect his stepdaughter if it came to that. Wearily he got to his feet. "I'll sleep until sunset then come back and take over." Before he left he paused at the door. "I just talked to Karin. She's on her way. We'll get through this, Rukia."

"I know we'll try our best. But she'll never be safe, will she? Not as long as that madman is alive and hunting us," Rukia said sadly.

Kisuke didn't have an answer. He lowered his head, trudging off to get some sleep.

* * *

Hisana woke with sunlight falling across her face from the open window. Raising her arm to shield her eyes, she lay still for a moment, her mind fuzzy with sleep. Something was missing. When she realized what it was, her eyes went wide and she sat bolt upright.

The pain was gone! Hisana pressed her hand to her side. It encountered only her pajamas, and smooth, unbroken skin beneath. Pajamas. She looked at the pale blue linen shirt she wore. _No black robes._ She looked around the familiar surroundings of her bedroom. _No golden sword. Nothing trying to kill me._ Confusion filled her mind. Had it all been a dream? Finding her bike, getting caught in the rain, being attacked at first by a vicious monster and then a regretful man? It had felt so real. The pain had been real. Could that possibly have been a dream? Hisana got to her feet. She felt light headed for a moment when she stood, and her muscles felt strangely languid, but it passed. Walking over to the door of her room, she slid it open, peeking out in the hall. The house seemed mostly quiet, and her parent's room was dark. She heard the TV from the living room, and padded down the hall on bare feet.

When Hisana entered, Tessai was sitting on the couch with his back to her, his eyes glued to the TV and his hands wrapped around the controller of his PlayStation X. He laughed happily as his digital avatar unleashed a vicious series of attacks on his opponent. That opponent was a man in his thirties sitting in her father's chair. She watched him in profile, groaning as his character was beaten up. He was a Westerner with close-cropped light brown hair and green eyes. He wore a well-tailored shirt and slacks that accentuated his lean, muscular frame. Hisana knew he was slightly taller than her when standing.

"David?" she said in surprise. She'd only met her aunt's fiancée in person once, but she saw pictures of him online, and her Aunt talked about him all the time. He glanced at her, and for a moment Hisana felt a spike of fear. For a moment his green eyes were sharp and cold, almost menacing; it was the same look she had seen in Nikan's eyes when he fought. But then he smiled, and his face became warm. "Look who's up and about, Tessai," he said, speaking fluent Japanese with an American accent.

Tessai twisted around on the couch, and his eyes got big. "Hisana! You're awake!" He hopped over the back of the couch and ran to her, wrapping his arms around her and resting his head on her chest. Looking down at her little brother in bemusement, Hisana was startled to realize he was crying.

"You slept for so long, sis! Mom and Dad said you were just sick and you'd be okay, but I was afraid you'd never wake up!"

Perplexed, Hisana looked from her sobbing brother with his death grip on her waist to David, who had risen to his feet and was tapping a text message onto his flex band. "It's Tuesday afternoon," he informed her when he was done.

"Tuesday?" Hisana said faintly, trying to process that. She had been asleep for _four days_? Her mind returned to her distinct and not at all dream-like memories of falling out of her body, and her fight with Nikan, of the wound he had inflicted on her. Her face paled. _Was that real?_

She was about to blurt out the question when David looked from Tessai to her and shook his head slightly. Then he picked up an apple from a bowl of fruit on the table and tossed it to Hisana, who raised one arm from holding her brother to catch it. "You're probably pretty hungry," he said. "Start with that, and you can work your way back up to something more solid later."

As soon as he said it, Hisana realized she was ravenous. The questions about what had happened to her were still on the tip of her tongue, but she understood that asking them now would only confuse and worry Tessai, so she swallowed them, along with a bite of the apple, followed by several more. Tessai disentangled himself from her, wiping his face and beaming to see her moving around. They sat down on the couch.

"What are you doing here?" Hisana asked between bites, devouring the apple.

"We came to see you," a familiar voice said from behind Hisana before a pair of arms wrapped themselves around her shoulders.

"Aunt Karin!" Hisana exclaimed in surprise, almost dropping her apple core. She twisted in her seat, returning her aunt's hug. "I thought you couldn't visit!"

Karin laughed. "It took the bureaucrats this long to realize they'd made a mistake, but better late than never."

Hisana's aunt sat down with them. "Where are Mom and Dad?" Hisana asked.

"Just getting some fresh air, dear," Karin answered. "They've been keeping an eye on you since you fell ill."

_Was I ill?_ Hisana wondered. The fact that Karin was giving her the same warning look that David had made her doubt it. She grabbed some more fruit to eat while Tessai reassured himself that she was all right and then returned to his game.

Once Hisana had eaten half the bowl of fruit she felt much better. Her aunt tapped her on the shoulder and tossed her head toward the hallway. They both got up and left David and Tessai with their game.

"Get dressed and come out to your father's workshop. Your parents have something for you."

"Aunt Karin? I-" Hisana began to say.

"Ssh, just get dressed and come with me, I promise you'll have all the answers you're looking for." Karin ushered Hisana into her room and slid the door shut.

Hisana's mind was awhirl as she changed clothes. What was going on? When she emerged from her room, Karin was gone. She headed out back and saw her aunt, who waved before disappearing into her father's workshop. When she went in, Karin was already in the back, frowning at Kisuke's tool rack. "Which one was it?" she murmured, before reaching out and twisting one of the hammers on the wall. "Aha!" she said as an unadorned wall panel slid aside. She stepped through. "Come on, Hisana."

She followed her aunt into a _hidden room in her father's workshop!_ "Aunt Karin, what's going on?" she asked, feeling a slight note of panic in her voice.

"You parents need to explain parts of it to you," was Karin's only answer. She pressed a button on the wall, and the small room fell. It was an elevator, Hisana realized. It shot down into the earth at a rapid pace, stopping suddenly enough that Karin and Hisana had to flex their knees to absorb the impact. Then the door slid open and Hisana forgot her questions for a moment. She stepped out into what was, to all appearances, a sizeable desert, light brown rock formations stretching away into the distance, blue sky above and the horizon to all sides. She turned around in time to watch the elevator door close, and another block of sky and horizon take its place.

"What is this place?" Hisana managed to choke out.

"It's a safe haven," her stepfather's voice answered, "and a training ground." Hisana turned around. In a clear, flat area in front of the elevator Rukia and Kisuke waited.

"What's going on?" Hisana yelled, stunned, confused and a little afraid.

Hisana noticed her aunt taking what looked like a Pez dispenser from her purse and popping a green candy into her mouth. Kisuke stepped forward to stand in front of Hisana. "Your first steps into a new world." He had his cane with him, and he raised it, poking Hisana in the forehead with the tip. She heard a cracking noise, and then felt once again the peculiar sensation of falling backward and remaining standing at the same time. Turning around, she saw it again, her sleeping body lying on the floor. A single glance down confirmed that the black robe was back, and the golden sword was at her side. She pressed her hand to her side and froze, feeling the roughness of a long, horizontal scar between her ribs. "It was all real?" she whispered. Looking at her aunt, she watched in disbelief as Karin split into two, one dressed in black robes, the other not falling to the ground but bowing to the robed half before making its way to the edge of a clearing and sitting on a rock. When Hisana looked back at her stepfather, he was swallowing a green pill of his own. His body split too, and his physical half ambled over to join Karin's body. Rukia had no pill, remaining flesh and blood.

"It was real, Hisana," Kisuke said. Unlike her and Karin, he had no sword at his side, but otherwise the uniform was identical. "I know this is a lot to take in, but we'll explain everything."

And they did.

* * *

"So I'm a shinigami, a death god, even though I'm still alive?" Hisana said, proud of how calm her voice was as she sat in a circle with her parents and aunt.

"That's right," her mother said, giving her a reassuring smile. "The gift runs in your father's family. He was the same as you, and so is Karin."

"And you and dad are both Shinigami, but you're dead?"

Kisuke laughed. "Rukia and I were both born in Seretei, the spirit world. So was your grandfather. But our gigai, the bodies we wear, make us just as human as anyone else. You and Tessai are proof of that," Kisuke said.

Hisana glanced down at her lap, at the sheathed sword resting across her legs. "This is… a zanpakuto? A piece of my soul?"

"Yes, Hisana," Her mother said. "It doesn't have a name yet, but you'll start having dreams about it soon, vivid ones that you'll remember on waking. It will tell you its name in time, and Karin and I can help you learn to speak to it."

Looking around at the seemingly huge landscape around her, Hisana asked. "So dad made this place?"

"I did. It's not as big as you think; the walls are just hard to see. It's large enough for our purposes though. Constructing these isn't hard, it just takes time. I have access to some tools not available in the outside world."

"And that guy in the red robes, Nikan. There are a lot more like him, and they all want to kill me?" Her voice trembled a bit on that one.

"They try to kill anyone who wears the black, but we won't let them hurt you," Karin said firmly. "We will protect you, and we'll teach you how to protect yourself."

Hisana nodded, biting her lip and holding onto her aunt's certainty, trying to push down her fear. Trying to distract herself, she glanced over at her body, now with a green pill of its own inside it, handing out with her stepfather and aunt's bodies, chatting with each other across the clearing. "Those are… soul pills?"

"When you have to leave your body, just swallow one and it will keep your physical form safe," her stepfather said. "I'll give you a dispenser like your aunt. You don't need a soul pill to leave your body, but it will be helpless unless you use one. The one I prepared for you is actually a mod soul; harder to make, but significantly stronger and more durable. It can protect your body much more effectively."

Hisana looked at her mother, puzzled. "But you don't have one, mom?"

Rukia and Kisuke exchanged a glance, and then she sighed and shook her head. "No, Hisana. I can't leave my gigai. It's… complicated, and it's not important. I promise I'll explain it later."

Karin clapped her hands. "Enough questions for now. You'll think yourself back into being confused. Why don't we take a break, move around a bit? I'd like to find out what you can do with that that pretty sword of yours, Ms. Kendo Champion Hisana." Karin jumped to her feet, her hand on the hilt of her zanpakuto. Urahara and Rukia moved back to give them space as Hisana got to her feet as well.

"With these swords?" Hisana asked uncertainly. "Won't that be dangerous?"

Karin grinned, shaking her head. "You're not going to be able to hit me just yet, and I won't hit you. Just show me what you've got."

After a moment's hesitation, Hisana drew her zanpakuto, the golden blade gleaming in the artificial sunlight. Karin drew hers, a plainer looking steel blade with black boar hide wrappings around the hilt. "Come at me whenever you're ready, Hisana,"

Stepping up to the attack, Hisana launched a few probing strikes that Karin easily batted away. She danced around her aunt, looking for an opening. Karin blocked her hits without any seeming effort, the older woman's movements so fast and fluid they made Hisana feel like a novice. Frustrated, Hisana pressed her harder, trying at least to make Karin mover her feet, to no avail.

After this had gone on for a few minutes, Karin simply vanished mid parry. She didn't blur like Nikan had; she just wasn't there anymore. Before Hisana could even move, a hand fell on her shoulder, turning her around to face her aunt, standing behind her now.

"Not bad," she said lightly. "Your form and reflexes are good. You've got potential, but you're holding back, Hisana," she said. "I don't expect you to internalize this instantly, but try to understand that this isn't a game or a sport anymore. If you don't strike with all of your will, with the intent to cut your opponent, you might as well not draw your zanpakuto at all."

Hisana blinked. "How can I do that? I don't want to hurt you, Aunt Karin!"

Karin smiled. "I'd be worried if you did. Let's see, how do I put this…"

"The sword you're holding isn't physical, Hisana," Kisuke interjected from the sidelines. "It's a piece of your soul, made from your reiatsu. If your will isn't focused on injuring your opponent, its edge will be too dull to cut anything."

Hisana nodded. "Okay." Karin squared off with her again. This time, Hisana focused on a familiar concept from kendo, visualizing striking _through_ the opponent. It took a bit of adjustment to imagine injuring her aunt; it became easier when she visualized one of her kendo club's instructors in Karin's place. Those misogynistic old geezers she would happily cut up a bit, if only to wipe their condescending looks from their faces. Hisana felt like she was moving more assuredly and Karin had to put a bit more effort into keeping her at bay.

When her aunt vanished again, Hisana was ready for it this time. She dove into a forward, and twisted into a low horizontal shin-level slice that Karin had to jump back to avoid. "Much better!" she congratulated Hisana.

"How do you do that?" Hisana asked. "Nikan moved really fast too; it's how he got me."

"Oh, this?" Karin asked, blurring from where she was standing to beside Hisana. "It's a technique called hoho, the ability to speed up in combat. The ultimate expression of it is shunpo, which is what I'm doing when I disappear from sight entirely. I focus my reiatsu on my feet and use it to accelerate my movement."

"Can I learn how to do that?" Hisana asked.

"Once you have finer reiatsu control, sure. Right now you're not aware enough of your own reiatsu to learn it." Karin looked thoughtful. "There is a way to defend yourself against an opponent who uses shunpo without knowing the technique yourself, and that you probably can learn. It will depend whether your spiritual senses are more like your mother's than your father's; he was hopeless at sensing reiatsu, mostly because he was putting out so much of it himself that he drowned everything else out."

Karin sheathed her sword. "Here, sit down and close your eyes," she instructed Hisana, doing likewise herself. Hisana obeyed, resting her sword across her knees and letting her eyes drift shut. Just empty your mind and focus."

Hisana didn't feel anything different for a few minutes, but then something changed. Even with her eyes closed she could see and feel a pale outline of a person in front of her. "That's you, Aunt Karin?" she asked.

"That's right." The silhouette that she associated with her aunt started moving. Raising a hand, Hisana pointed at Karin, tracking her as she moved. "Very good."

A moment later, a second presence appeared in Hisana's mind. It was behind her, and farther away. When she focused on it, it felt incredibly familiar. She turned her head in its direction, eyes still closed. "Mom, is that you?"

"It is," Rukia confirmed. "You're definitely better at this than your father was."

Then Hisana sensed a third presence, directly above her. She turned her head back, and her eyes opened to see Kisuke standing comfortably in midair a few meters above her. "Dad!"

He hopped down from the air and rejoined Rukia. His reiatsu vanished, then hers. Karin's remained distinct in Hisana's senses. "You're a natural, Hisana. Now, we're going to spar again, and this time stay focused on my reiatsu." They drew their swords again, and Hisana went on the attack. She'd already guessed where this was going, and when her aunt disappeared again, she took a step forward, focused on the reiatsu that had appeared behind her and to her left, and turned to parry, catching Karin's blade on her own. "Perfect," her aunt said. "Shunpo is useful, but it has weaknesses. The big one is that you can't outrun your reiatsu, so if your opponent is sensing you in addition to seeing you, it becomes far less effective."

Hisana nodded. "But what if my opponent hides their reiatsu like mom and dad?"

Karin shook her head, her own reiatsu fading from Hisana's senses. "The technique we're using is one that only a handful of shinigami know, most of whom are standing in this room. It's difficult, it takes years to master, and for the red robes it's unnecessary. They're in charge; they don't need to hide. We're good at it because we have to be to survive."

Hisana cocked her head. "But I don't know how to do it," she said nervously. "Won't they be able to sense me?"

"That's the interesting thing," Kisuke said. "You're already doing it. Right now, none of us can sense you. The other night I could, but that may have just been related to your injuries. You're back to being invisible now, even when you're outside your body. I've never encountered anyone who could replicate the technique by instinct, but it will keep you safe, so I'm not complaining."

Hisana nodded. She was surprised that she was able to take this all in stride. _Maybe I'm just numb to the shocks,_ she thought. _But knowing all this I have to ask…_

Hisana glanced at her aunt, then her father. "You said dad and grandpa were like this, but really strong?" Karin nodded, and Hisana asked slowly. "They didn't die in a gas explosion, did they? And that's not what happened to you either, is it mom?"

Rukia paled slightly, but didn't answer.

"Aya…" her stepfather exclaimed, rubbing the back of his head. "There's the question I was afraid of."

"Hisana…" her mother began.

"She has to know, Rukia," Karin interrupted. "She has to understand how dangerous the red robes are."

"One of them almost killed her, Karin," Rukia replied sharply. "I think she knows."

"No, Karin's right, dear," Kisuke said heavily. "She needs to see it. She needs to understand why we've stayed hidden for all these years." He signaled to his body, and the soul pill removed a remote from his jacket. "I hoped you'd never have to see this, Hisana."

Her stepfather's gigai pressed a button on the remote, and the fake desert around them faded to darkness.


	3. As Wheat before the Reaper

**Chapter Three: As Wheat before the Reaper**

The darkness around Hisana lasted only a moment before light grew, surrounding her. It resolved itself into a cityscape; Hisana found herself standing on a small street in a crowded urban area, her parents and aunt standing around her.

"This is Karakura Town," Rukia told her daughter. "Your grandfather made his home here, becoming a doctor, marrying your grandmother Masaki, and raising your father and aunts. This is where I met your father," she continued, her voice thickening, "and this is where the real story of our family begins."

Hisana listened, rapt, as Rukia, Kisuke and Karin took turns telling her about her family's past. As they talked about the people her father had known, and fought alongside, they appeared as moving illusions nearby. She learned about her father's first allies besides her parents.

Inoue Orihime, a beautiful, willowy auburn haired woman with strange power and a kind heart. Yasutora Sado, a towering Mexican with enormous strength and a quiet nature. Ishida Uryu, the withdrawn, enigmatic and powerful Quincy.

Eventually the scene around them changed to a sprawling city built in the style of the Edo period in Japan: Seireitei. Hisana learned the story of how her father and his friends had invaded to rescue Rukia from execution, and stumbled into the middle of a plot a century in the making: Sosuke Aizen's rebellion.

The story of her father and the defenders of Karakura Town took hours, and by the end Hisana had seen images of Seireitei, Hueco Mundo, and other places her father had visited. When that tale ended, the scenery around them faded back to Karakura Town.

"Ichigo and I loved each other for a long time before we admitted it to ourselves or each other," Rukia said, "but by the time all the fighting was done and we started thinking about the future, we realized that we wanted to spend our lives together. We were married four years after the Winter War, and it wasn't long before we found out that we would be having a child." Hisana saw her father, spiky orange hair and a goatee, along with her mother, her belly swollen and her body whole, stepping out of a house, talking and laughing before fading away. When Hisana looked at Rukia, she saw tears in her mother's eye.

Kisuke put his arm around her shoulder. "Four days before you were born, Ichigo and Orihime were summoned to Seireitei by the Captain-Commander of the Gotei 13. Ichigo didn't want to leave Rukia when she was so close to giving birth, but we all trusted the Captain-Commander, and we thought he wouldn't have summoned them without good reason, so they went," Urahara told Hisana in a grim voice. The scenery returned to Karakura Town, and she watched a shining gate open in midair, and saw Ichigo, dressed in black with a sword like a giant cleaver as long as he was tall on his back, along with Orihime, step through. "That was the last time we saw either of them."

Day faded to night in the image of Karakura Town around them, and then Hisana saw flashes of blue and yellow in the sky. "Three days after Ichigo left, we all felt a tremendous battle nearby. Ishida Uryu was fighting an opponent of tremendous power. By the time Sado and I got to the scene, it was over. Uryu was dead, and his opponent was gone." The scene around them changed to an empty park in Karakura, her father and Sado arriving to find the park devastated, huge craters and gouges in the earth; trees blown apart and uprooted. When they found the body of the slender man who had fought alongside her father, the darkness hid the details, but Hisana could see his blood pooled around him and deep, smoking gashes in his body.

"The same night, while Sado and I were taking Uryu's body to his family, the same enemy struck the Kurosaki Clinic. Isshin was one of the strongest shinigami ever to have lived, but it didn't make a difference. He fell in battle in a matter of minutes, and then his opponent blew up the clinic, killing your aunt and your father," Kisuke's voice was ragged, and Rukia struggled to remain composed. Karin was stone-faced.

"If dad was in Seireitei, how did he die at the clinic?" Hisana asked.

"It's the one big weakness of being a substitute shinigami," Karin answered quietly. "Like us, your father was still alive, living out a human lifespan. When he went to Seireitei, he left his body behind with a mod soul named Kon to occupy and defend it. Kon was at the clinic in your father's body when it exploded, and when a substitute's body dies, even if they're not in it at the time, their soul passes on as well. Ichigo's spirit form would have vanished from wherever he was in Seireitei and reappeared somewhere in the Rukongai with no power or memory of who he was."

"After that, it was clear we were being picked off one by one. So Sado, Yoruichi and I got Rukia and took her back to my shop, where we could all face this enemy together. We thought it would make a difference," Kisuke said bitterly.

The scene around them changed to an underground room similar to the one they were actually in. The shade of Hisana's pregnant mother was there, along with Kisuke, Sado, a dark-skinned woman with purple hair that she knew to be Yoruichi, and a strange trio: an older man with a massive build, a substantial mustache and hair in cornrows, and two teenagers, a waifish dark-haired girl and an angry-looking red haired boy. They were Tsukabishi Tessai, Hanakari Jinta and Tsumugiya Ururu.

Hisana flinched when a section of the training ground's roof collapsed, driven downward by what must have been a massive blast. The illusions of the past reacted instantly, with Tessai forming a kido barrier around himself and Rukia, while the others spread out to face their new enemy, anger and resolve on their faces.

Hisana stared in disbelief when only a single figure strode out of the dust from the collapse. He wore a red robe like Nikan, and over it a white haori with "1" on the back. He was tall and thin, with a gaunt, cruel face, his features aristocratic and haughty. His gray eyes burned in sunken sockets with hate and vicious glee. His long dark hair was arranged in a handful of thick braids, each one capped at the end by a silver ball. He held a full sized zanpakuto in his right hand, a slender dagger in a reverse grip in his left hand, and a crossbow slung over his shoulder. He and Kisuke exchanged words, but the images were silent. "He said he was the Gatekeeper; he gave no other name," Kisuke said heavily. "You can't imagine how shocked we were to see him wearing that haori, the uniform of the Captain-Commander. It meant Yamamoto Genryuusai was deposed or dead by his hand. He said Seireitei was 'purged of weakness', and that the Kurosaki line would be ended by his hand. When I asked him why, he only smiled and said that it was his will that 'Isshin's disgraceful mongrels' be wiped from existence. Then he attacked."

What followed was a bloodbath. Hisana pressed her hands to her mouth, horrified. The Gatekeeper moved so quickly that her eyes couldn't follow him; only what he left behind. Little Ururu and sullen Jinta died in seconds, to blows so fast that the older fighters couldn't protect them. They were whole one instant and then spraying blood from fatal wounds the next. Whenever the Gatekeeper slowed down enough to be seen Kisuke, Yoruichi and Sado attacked, but he danced away from their attacks like he knew were they would hit ahead of time. Sado was the next to fall to the Gatekeeper's wrath, the red robed shinigami burying his dagger in Sado's sternum and slicing down, gutting him like a trout. As the Mexican fell dead, the Gatekeeper sheathed his dagger, yanked the crossbow off of his shoulder, and fired a glowing bolt of silver light at Kisuke. Hisana watched her adoptive father, unable to dodge in time, move to block the attack with his blade, only to see a silvery explosion throw him violently into the rock face behind him and knock him senseless, his sword gone.

The Gatekeeper turned to face Yoruichi, his last opponent, sheathing his sword and putting up his crossbow, saying something to her that seemed to make her even angrier. She launched herself at him, and they fought hand to hand, the Gatekeeper seeming to revel in the fight. "I knew Yoruichi for two centuries before the day you're witnessing here, and I never knew a finer unarmed combatant," Kisuke said sadly. Yoruichi's back exploded in white light and her bare handed attacks shattered stone, but none connected with the grinning Captain-Commander. Their battle was a blur of punches and kicks that ended when the Gatekeeper caught Yoruichi's arm in a lock and broke it. Then he rained a vicious series of blows on her face and gut until she was sprawled on the ground, senseless, her face so bloody and bruised as to be unrecognizable. Not done yet, the Gatekeeper picked Yoruichi up and traced a symbol in the air with his free hand. A senkai gate opened from thin air. He tossed her unconscious form through it, and then closed it just as easily.

The action was odd enough that Hisana had to ask, "Why did he do that?"

Kisuke sighed, regret and loss etched on his face. "The only reason I can think of for him to spare her is to control the Shihoin family. They're influential in Seireitei and she's their family head, so it makes sense he'd take her hostage if he needed to shore up his position."

As they watched, the Gatekeeper approached the barrier protecting Tessai and Rukia. They had both watched the fight, and were horrified. The gatekeeper raised his hand and pointed, speaking a few words. A torrent of red light poured from his hands, striking the barrier and shattering it.

Moving away from Rukia, Tessai began incantations of his own, and Hisana witnessed her first kido battle. Blasts of lightning, fire, darkness and indescribable energies flew back and forth between them. Barriers appeared at the last moment to stop attacks that vaporized whole sections of the training room around them while Rukia maintained her own, smaller barrier simply to shield herself from the kido being thrown around.

Suddenly Tessai was scorched by a blast of red fire, and then driven to the ground by a quintet of massive metal pillars that fell on him, pinning him to the ground. Done with the kido master, the Gatekeeper approached Rukia, who dropped her barrier and rose to her feet, a hopeless yet determined expression on her face. "I knew I had no chance," Hisana's mother said softly. "But I couldn't stand there and do nothing. He was there to prevent your birth." Past Rukia raised her hand and chanted, and an orb of red fire flew at the Gatekeeper. He raised his hand and caught it, holding the fireball in his hand, looking at it. It increased in brilliance. Then he gave Rukia a sadistic grin and threw it back at her.

Past Rukia tried to dodge, but the fire still washed over the left side of her body, and Hisana shrieked at the sight of her mother engulfed in flame, falling to the ground and rolling in the dirt in an effort to extinguish it while the Gatekeeper laughed. Hate crystallized in her heart, hate like Hisana had never felt before at this horrid man who had hurt her family so much.

Hisana was shocked to see her mother rise up into a crouch, drawing her zanpakuto despite her injuries. Then the Gatekeeper vanished, and past Rukia screamed silently as her sword arm was severed, blood pouring from the stump. She fell back to the ground. The Gatekeeper put his foot on her neck, took his crossbow from his shoulder, calmly reloaded it and then fired its silver bolt into Rukia's chest at point blank range, purposely missing her vitals just to inflict more pain, a sadist's grin wide on his face. Her mother screamed again, and then passed out. The Gatekeeper looked annoyed, then shrugged and drew his dagger, crouching to administer the finishing blow.

Then the ground shook and a crimson light filled the cavern. Hisana looked back where Tessai had fallen and was surprised to see him on his feet, the metal pillars crumbling around him. His body was enveloped in a visible cloud of reddish reiatsu, and his expression was pure rage. Clenching his fists, he began to speak, clearly enough and close enough that Hisana could read his lips. "Eternal fires wait in the depths. Black lotus petals burn on the wind. Judgment comes to the wicked and righteous alike." At first the Gatekeeper only looked annoyed that he'd have to waste time killing Tessai as well, but as the burly shopkeeper spoke his incantation, Hisana saw alarm on the Gatekeeper's cruel face for the first time. He lunged at Tessai, but he was too late. "Forbidden Bakudo No. 7! Gēto jigoku!" _[Hell Gate]_ the shopkeeper roared, extending one finger as if in accusation at the Gatekeeper.

Hisana gasped as a pair of massive black doors sprang into existence near Tessai and the Gatekeeper, a skeleton wrapped in rags emblazoned on each one. The doors swung open, revealing a sea of red beyond. The Gatekeeper turned to run, but barbed chains shot from the doorway, wrapping around his body and dragging him in, until he vanished into the sea of fire. "Yes!" Hisana whispered. But then she saw what happened next. More chains exploded from the door, and this time they wrapped around Tessai, who didn't fight as they pulled him in as well. Hisana saw Kisuke rise from where he had fallen in time to see Tessai, their eyes meeting before Tessai vanished into the gate. Then the huge black doors swung shut. Kisuke leapt forward, pounding on them, yelling something. Then they vanished. The last thing Hisana saw of the past was Kisuke noticing Rukia was still breathing and staggering over to her, ignoring his own injuries as the scene faded and their true surroundings returned.

"The only reason any of us are still alive is because one of my oldest friends consigned his own soul to Hell to save us," Kisuke said raggedly. "Naming my son after him was the least I could do."

Hisana shivered. "But it worked, right?"

"Unfortunately, even that only delayed the Gatekeeper. I had time to keep your mother alive and get her to a safe place to give birth. We went into hiding. In the years that followed I got some information out of a few red robes." The look on his face made Hisana decide not to ask how he had done that. "They all insisted the Gatekeeper was firmly in charge of Seireitei. I'm not surprised. Ichigo managed to enter Hell and escape, and he hadn't been as strong as the Gatekeeper was."

"I see." Hisana mulled over what she had seen. Learning that the monstrous shinigami she had seen was still alive was frightening. "That crossbow he used; is that why you don't have a sword, dad?"

"Sharp eye. You are your mother's daughter," Kisuke said. "Yes, the quarrels from that weapon were composed of some kind of seal I've never seen before. I've been trying to figure out how to break them for years, but they're indestructible. When that shot hit Benihime I lost her."

"That's why you can't leave your gigai, mom?"

Rukia nodded, parting her kimono far enough for Hisana to see an irregular patch of silver with filaments radiating out under her skin between her breasts. "It's fused to the gigai, and it seals my soul inside."

"So this is why we kept moving around when I was little," Hisana observed. She remembered when she was very young that they had lived in a new place every few months."

"Yes Hisana. We kept moving until we were convinced that the Gatekeeper and his red robes had lost our scent. Then we moved here, where shinigami hardly ever visit."

Another thought occurred to Hisana, and she looked between her mother and father. "So before I was born, when my dad was still alive, you knew each other?"

Kisuke nodded. "For several years."

"Did you… you know… have feelings for each other then?"

Rukia and Kisuke looked at each other and then they both burst out laughing. Hisana felt herself turning slightly red. "What?" she asked.

"I suppose animosity is a feeling," Kisuke said when he could stop laughing.

"Hatred is definitely a feeling," Rukia agreed, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. "Oh, that's right, in our story of Ichigo's past we left the part out about why Aizen was so dead set on executing me." Rukia grinned. "The generous shopkeeper here gave me a free gigai after I transferred my powers to Ichigo. He didn't mention that the gigai was designed to drain my reiatsu and leave me trapped as a human."

"WHAT?" Hisana and Karin said at the same time, exchanging a stunned look. Apparently Hisana's aunt hadn't heard this story either. Both of them glared at Kisuke, who took a step back.

"Aya!" he exclaimed. "There was a good reason!"

"There was," Rukia agreed, resting her head on Kisuke's shoulder. "He had to hide the Hogyoku from Aizen, so he decided to trap a shinigami in a gigai implanted with the Hogyoku that would turn them into an ordinary human and render the damned thing invisible to everyone. I happened to be that shinigami. It almost worked, too."

"Wow. So what changed between you?" Hisana asked.

Rukia smiled gently. "There are two kinds of love, Hisana. The first kind is fast, like an explosion. It's there in an instant, and it changes everything, even if you don't realize it at first. Ichigo and I had that."

Rukia paused, looking at Kisuke fondly, who looked slightly embarrassed. "The other kind of love is slow, like ivy growing on a wall. You don't even notice it taking root and you don't see it growing, but one day you turn around and that barren wall is covered in ivy and you discover how beautiful it is, even though you thought you would always hate that wall. For years, when you were a baby, we were running all the time, and keeping you safe was our only thought. I was grateful to Kisuke for taking care of us, but I didn't think much more of it than that. It was after we moved here that I started to understand what had changed. You were outside playing with your dolls, having a tea party, and he just sat down and joined in. Watching that, I realized that he was more than just an ally in a common goal; he was a great father. Not only that, but when it came down to it he was willing to defend us without hesitation, and even though it cost him so much he was ready to do it again. That's when I started to love him. For a time I was afraid that he wouldn't love me, looking like this," Rukia gestured to her ruined face with her one good hand. "But I was wrong."

"You were wrong," Kisuke said, kissing her cheek – the scarred one. "Because there's nothing wrong with you."

"He's got that right," Hisana said sincerely, hugging her parents. "I wouldn't trade you guys for anyone." She gave them enough time to get misty-eyed before adding impishly, "Even if you did just get me dragged into a war."

Kisuke patted her on the head. "You're not enlisted just yet, kiddo." Then he looked at her seriously. "The plan hasn't changed because you have a zanpakuto, Hisana. Hiding is still the plan, and I hope you never have to use it again. What Karin's going to teach you is a contingency, in case things don't go according to plan."

"Yes, because we Kurosakis are famous for keeping a low profile and not attracting trouble," Karin said sardonically. "Why don't you two go relieve David and I'll show Hisana a few more tricks?"

Rukia and Urahara departed, and Karin rubbed her hands. "Let's see… since you're suppressing your reiatsu all the time it's hard to get a handle on how strong you are… oh, I know! Let's see if you're good at something else your father was terrible with: kido. At heart it's just shaping your reiatsu into a desired effect. The incantation focuses you on the form you want the power to take. Let's start with some simple Hado spells and see how big a boom you can make…"


	4. A Shinigami's Duty

**Chapter Four: A Shinigami's Duty**

_Seireitei_

Moroyoshi Katsuko, 19th Seat of the 6th Division, had been summoned to the office of her squad's lieutenant Abarai Renji many times before, but never without a reason. So a vague sense of unease filled her as she approached the door to his office in the barracks of the 6th Division.

Katsuko was a stout woman, short of stature but solidly built and muscular. Her features were unremarkable, save for a pair of scars, one across the bridge of her nose and the other tracing down her cheek to her neck. She wore her black hair cut short as a matter of practicality; long hair got in the way in a fight. She knew herself to be plain and perhaps even a tad mannish in appearance, although her husband never failed to insist that she was the most beautiful woman in Seireitei. A small smile flickered across her lips before it vanished. She loved him because he was sincere when he said it, not because she thought it was true.

Straightening her crimson robes, Katsuko knocked on the door. "Come in," came the division lieutenant's voice. Katsuko entered, bowing as Renji rose from his desk. Katsuko was struck, as usual, by the strength of his presence. Like most high ranking officers, he kept it suppressed as a matter of courtesy when around lower ranked shinigami, but it was still there. Even if you weren't looking at a mountain, it still cast a shadow.

Renji was not alone, and Katsuko blinked in surprise. Rising from a chair in front of Renji's desk was a silver-haired man of advanced years, his lined, aristocratic face distinguished. "Kaname," she said with surprise. Tomogoshi Kaname, 5th Seat of the 6th Division, had not only been her mentor since she graduated from the academy and was accepted into the 6th Division, he was the closest thing she had to a father, having grown up an orphan in the Rukongai. A chill went through Katsuko. There were only so many reasons that he would be in this room when she was summoned.

"Katsuko, have a seat, please," Renji said. Alarm bells were going off in Katsuko's head. The lieutenant had a well-earned reputation as a gruff and somewhat distant commander, for all that the Division's officers admired him, but he sounded almost… gentle now.

Wordlessly Katsuko sat down. "What's happened?" she asked tightly. Something was very wrong.

Renji and Kaname exchanged a silent look, and then Kaname sighed. "There's no easy way to say this, Katsuko: Nikan is dead."

A cold fist gripped her heart. Her husband couldn't be dead! She had spoken to him just days ago before he left for the living world. Katsuko felt like an immense weight was crushing her chest, as though she were standing in the presence of a captain at full power. She couldn't breathe for a moment.

"How?" she managed to get out.

"A Hollow killed him. His squad leader went looking for him when he didn't report in last night, and found his body in his patrol area in the living world."

Katsuko shook her head in denial. "No. A Hollow wouldn't have been able to kill Nikan. He was too strong for that." She looked at Kaname, expression pleading. "You know a Hollow couldn't have gotten him."

Kaname sighed. Reaching into an inner pocket, he removed a glass vial and tossed it to Katsuko, who caught it by reflex. Inside were slivers of whitish Hollow armor stained with blood. "He was covered in claw and bite marks. The 4th Division medics took those fragments out of his chest. All the wounds are consistent with a Hollow attack. I'm sorry, Katsuko. I know this must come as a shock."

Clenching her fist around the vial, Katsuko stood, bowing to Renji and Kaname only by reflex. "I'd like to see him," she said quietly.

Kaname got up. "Of course, Katsuko; the 4th Division is expecting you. I'll walk you over."

Katsuko nodded in wordless gratitude. Each step out of the lieutenant's office felt leaden. The walk to the 4th Division's barracks was a blur to her. Kaname followed her silently.

The guards outside the 4th Division parted to let her pass, and a guide met them inside, leading Katsuko and Kaname to the morgue. Their journey ended in a bare, sterile room deep in the morgue. A short, slender shinigami with an appearance of relative youth was there, peeling off a pair of gloves. He had short black hair cut messily, and his blue eyes were sad. He wore a pack slung over one shoulder, the white sash contrasting with his red robes.

"7th Seat Yamada," Kaname said formally, bowing to the youthful medical shinigami.

"Oh!" he said, starting in surprise as they entered. "Ah, welcome, 5th Seat Kaname," he said with a bow, "and 19th Seat Moroyoshi. I'm… very sorry."

"Thank you, Hanatarou," Katsuko said mechanically. Her eyes were drawn to a form covered in a sheet on the room's stone slab of an examining table. "May I see him?"

"Of course," the diminutive medical shinigami said, stepping to the far side of the table and drawing back the sheet. Katsuko managed to maintain a stoic exterior even as rage and grief boiled inside her. Nikan lay there, eyes closed, looking as though he were merely sleeping. Save for the shallow gashes in his side, the deep bite mark on his leg, and the messy hole on his sternum. Katsuko distantly noted that the medical shinigami had done a good job of cleaning him up; he would look handsome for his funeral.

At last something within Katsuko broke, and her shoulders started to shake. Hanatarou slipped out of the room after exchanging a discreet nod with Kaname. He closed the door behind him.

Water started dripping onto the table by Nikan, and Katsuko looked up in irritation. The least the 4th Division could do was make sure the roof didn't leak! It wasn't until her vision blurred that she realized she was crying. A low, mournful keening filled the room that Katsuko was shocked to discover was her own voice. Kaname embraced her, one of the few times he had ever done so, and Katsuko wept, her face buried in his crimson robe.

When the tears were past, Katsuko drew away from him, drying her eyes. "My apologies, Kaname," she said.

"Don't apologize for your grief Katsuko," he said gently.

Katsuko looked back at her husband's body, and through the grief and anger she had a moment of clarity. "Once we've laid him to rest, I want to be assigned to his patrol area."

Kaname looked startled. "Katsuko, you're a seated officer. Taking such a position would reflect poorly on the division. I know you must want revenge, but-"

"This isn't about revenge," Katsuko said firmly. "Nikan was strong, Kaname. He was close to being a seated officer himself. You know that." Kaname nodded reluctantly. "If a Hollow…" she swallowed a hard lump in her throat, "if a Hollow killed Nikan, then there's no one left in his squad who can deal with that Hollow when it reappears. You're going to have to send a seated officer to deal with it in any case, and I want to be the one." She looked at her mentor imploringly. "Please Kaname, I need this."

Kaname looked uncomfortable, but he nodded. "All right, Katsuko. Lieutenant Abarai wasn't certain where we were going to get reinforcements for Nikan's squad; they've been understrength for a while, so he'll accept the need." Katsuko nodded; there were never enough loyal shinigami wearing the red; ever since the new Captain-Commander had replaced the old one the ranks had been strained. At that time many of those who wore the black had resigned from the Gotei 13 or had rebelled and been executed. Only those who wore the red were permitted to enter the living world, and their numbers were always stretched.

"Thank you, Kaname," Katsuko said.

* * *

_The Living World, Four Months Later_

As Hisana and her mother wandered from shop to shop at the mall in town where they had travelled to shop for some winter clothes, she reflected on the whirlwind of change in her life recently. The only thing stranger than how much had changed in Hisana's life was how much had stayed the same.

Hisana was in school once more, and going back at summer's end had been almost surreal in its normality after months of spending nearly every day training to improve her shinigami powers.

Any notion that she had already been a skilled swordswoman was dispelled almost from day one. Not only had her aunt made embarrassingly clear in their early duels how far Hisana had to go, but Karin had proven to be a ruthless taskmaster, frequently running Hisana through combat drills and kido practice until she couldn't lift her zanpakuto anymore, or channel a spark of reiatsu. Their work had borne fruit, though. Her parents commented that she was growing in skill almost as quickly as her father, and while she didn't have the raw power Ichigo had possessed, she was better at some things than he was.

Hisana's spiritual sense was keen enough that her aunt's speed, while still far surpassing hers, rarely caught her by surprise anymore. She had learned the hoho techniques quickly, and was zipping around her stepfather's underground training area with ease by summer's end. She had memorized and become adept at casting low-level kido, and could put a fair amount of power into them even without an incantation. Mid-level kido still tended to explode on her, but Karin and her mother assured her it would become easier with time.

Hisana's greatest sense of accomplishment had come when she had finally released her zanpakuto's shikai form. She had dreamt all summer of her sword's spirit, a willowy woman with hair and skin the same shade of metallic gold as the blade, and eyes that shone with a deep blue light. The dreams always happened in the same place; a palace unlike anything Hisana had seen in her waking life. The dream palace was immense, seemingly as large as a city, filled with endless hallways, ballrooms, passages and rooms that an army could get lost in.

At first, Hisana's dreams of that place had been merely of wandering the halls, lost and not caring as she marveled at the beauty of the dream until she awoke. Later, she could sometimes hear a woman singing, or catch a glimpse of movement, a golden figure glanced for an instant and then gone. Months later, the day when she had finally chased down the golden woman, she had thought that the dream was done. But when she approached the spirit of her sword, its voice had been lost in the song. It had taken Hisana weeks more of dreaming to slowly understand the meaning behind the song and hear her zanpakuto's true voice.

After Hisana released her shikai, Kisuke had started taking part in her training more often, teaching her hakuda techniques of hand to hand combat to compliment her zanpakuto's released form. As Karin put it, "He knows more about _that_ kind of fighting than I do."

When school started back up, Hisana had been surprised at how vehement her parents were that academics would come before training. "Your future is in the human world, Hisana," her mother had explained. "That hasn't changed. Like your aunt you straddle the two worlds, but you live in this one. School is still important. We won't stop the training, but you won't have as much time for it. You've already made amazing progress. As long as we stay hidden you're more than capable already of taking care of yourself."

So Hisana's life had returned to a semblance of normality. Karin and David went home to Los Angeles, with promises to visit. Hisana started school again, and to her surprise things changed for the better. Some of the girls who had made problems for her didn't seem interested in being so childish anymore. Others just seemed warier around her. When she asked her mother about it, Rukia had laughed. "A vast majority of humans aren't spiritually aware, but that doesn't mean they're totally oblivious. A part of their mind they're not consciously aware of is telling them you're a dangerous opponent. They can't quantify why they're nervous around you, but they are."

To explain her long absences during the summer, Hisana and her parents told Tessai that she had gotten a job in the city. Lost in his own pursuits and summer activities, he hadn't really questioned it too much, and it explained to him why Hisana always crawled into bed in the evenings exhausted.

As Hisana shopped with her mother, something kept nagging at the edge of her spiritual senses. The whole city had felt faintly _wrong_ ever since they arrived. It wasn't until they sat down for lunch and Hisana saw half a dozen different ghosts wander by over the course of the meal that it hit her. "Mom, isn't it weird for there to be so many ghosts wandering around?" Hisana asked quietly. "I can see two just from here, and I can sense more around the mall."

"It is unusual," Rukia agreed idly. "One would think that the red robes would have replaced the one you met by now. Maybe they haven't, or his replacement isn't as good."

Hisana was struck by her mother's lack of concern. "Doesn't this bother you? If someone doesn't bury these souls they'll become Hollow or get eaten by one."

Rukia sighed. "It does, bother me, Hisana. As a shinigami I'm shocked that the Gotei 13 has fallen so far since they put on the red. This is shameful." She gave her daughter a direct look with her one good eye. "But as fugitives, there's nothing we can do about it. Even if we could risk being seen by the red robes, your father doesn't have a zanpakuto to perform burials with and I can't leave my body. Enough people give me strange looks already without me wandering around poking the air."

"I could do it, Mom," Hisana said. "I brought Melfina with me. She could take care of my body while I help these souls." She held up the rabbit-headed dispenser similar to her mother's with the mod soul her father had named Melfina inside.

"Out of the question," Rukia said sharply. "We do not reveal ourselves in populated areas."

"C'mon mom, if there was a red robe around here they wouldn't be leaving all these souls to wander. It won't take long."

"I said no, and that's final," Rukia told Hisana.

Hisana slumped in her chair dejectedly. "Why did I learn how to be a shinigami if you won't let me do the job? Didn't you tell dad when you met him that he had a duty to help every soul and that he couldn't just pick and choose which ones to save?"

"Kisuke never should have told you that story," Rukia muttered. "This is different, Hisana. Your father only had to worry about Hollows. You have to worry about being seen by a red robe. Even the smallest risk of being spotted is unacceptable. All of our lives depend on staying hidden."

Hisana nodded glumly and picked at her food for a few minutes, appetite gone. When the meal was done they left the mall and headed for the train station. They were only seconds outside the mall's doors when a scream tore through the air, then another. Hisana's looked around in alarm, but no one around them seemed to notice, even as the screaming continued.

Suspicious, Hisana reached out with her spiritual senses, and detected a nauseating reiatsu. Whipping her head around, she saw three souls run around the corner of a building, a man a woman and a small girl, their chains bouncing as they ran, terror clear on their faces. A moment later, a humanoid Hollow half as tall as the building rounded the corner in pursuit of them, its deep, and chilling howl echoing through the air. It pursued the trip of frightened spirits across the parking lot as humans milled around, unaware.

"Let's go, Hisana," Rukia said sadly, gripping her daughter's shoulder. "It shouldn't be able to tell us from the humans, but there's no sense risking it."

As Hisana watched, the girl spirit tripped and fell. The Hollow roared in triumph as the adult spirits turned in dismay. The man kept running, while the woman dashed for the child. The Hollow would have them both in seconds.

Determination filled Hisana and she stepped away from her mother. "I'm sorry mom. I can't watch this and do nothing." She grabbed her Chappy dispenser and swallowed the pill as Rukia turned, eyes widening in alarm.

"Hisana, NO!" Rukia cried as Hisana's spirit form erupted from her body. Pushing reiatsu into her feet she threw herself at the Hollow. Her zanpakuto flew from its sheath as the Hollow's massive fist plummeted toward the pair of screaming souls.

* * *

Time had not been kind to Katsuko. Her hair was a tangled mess, her robes wrinkled and spotted with blood in places that she hadn't bothered to clean. Her eyes were bloodshot, with bags under them.

Katsuko's soul pager pinged, but she ignored it. She'd been ignoring it for months now. She didn't need it to know that the massive building the humans used as a market was full of souls needing burial. She knew already.

Watching the humans mill about below from her vantage point, a construction site adjacent to the mall, Katsuko frowned in irritation. It shouldn't have taken this long! She had scoured Nikan's former area for Hollow, slaying a number of them, but none was the one she needed to find. Before she left Seireitei, Hanatarou had shown her what the Hollow appendage that had pierced Nikan's chest looked like. It was a barbed spike with a unique appearance, and she knew that she would recognize it if she saw it. Doubt gnawed at her. What if Nikan had managed to kill it before he died? _No,_ she thought, there had been no trace of dissipated Hollow reiatsu where his body had been found. There would have been if the Hollow that killed him had died there.

What she was doing now would horrify Kaname, or any of her comrades. She had foregone burying the souls that gathered in the human mall while cleansing the rest of the city normally. The result was a buffet of souls that attracted all of the area's Hollows to one place, where she could easily examine and dispatch them. Letting souls linger like that was cruel and violated a number of Seireitei's laws. A few had turned into Hollow themselves and had to be killed, but Katsuko didn't care. Finding the Hollow who killed Nikan was all that mattered to her.

A fluctuation of reiatsu drew Katsuko's attention back to the present, and she watched a new Hollow chase some souls across the parking lot. It was a regular bipedal type, without any limbs of the type that had killed Nikan. Sighing, Katsuko picked up her zanpakuto and hopped down from her perch lazily. Once she would have worried about saving those souls from the Hollow, but now she was a bit surprised to realize that she didn't care if they were eaten. All she needed to do was get rid of this Hollow and wait for the trap to draw in another one. Eventually it would attract the Hollow she wanted.

Katsuko was almost there when a dark blur shot towards the Hollow, resolving itself into a teenage girl wearing black shinigami robes and wielding a golden zanpakuto. Eyes widening in surprise, Katsuko ducked behind one of the human mechanical conveyances as the black shinigami came to rest between the souls and the Hollow, raising her blade to catch the Hollow's falling fist on her blade. The force of the impact almost drove the girl to her knees, but when the dust cleared the souls were safe, the shinigami girl was still standing, and the Hollow was staggering back, black blood dripping from its fingers where the golden zanpakuto had cut it. The girl in black didn't waste any time, leaping at the Hollow, dodging its clumsy swing at her and plunging her blade into its eye before yanking it to the side, tearing its head open and shattering its mask. With a howl the Hollow dissolved.

_A black robe? Here?_ Katsuko's mind raced. She couldn't get a sense of the younger shinigami's strength; the girl was putting out almost no reiatsu, but she'd dispatched a fairly strong Hollow with ease. Katsuko decided to remain hidden, edging closer but keeping cars between her and the black robe. The girl shinigami turned to the souls she had just saved, comforting them and then performing the soul burial.

When that was done, she wiped her forehead, sighing. "Mom is going to kill me," she said, glancing over her shoulder. "I hope Nikan's replacement comes and takes care of the souls around here," the young shinigami murmured before trotting off after the male soul who had run into the construction site.

Katsuko went rigid when she heard her husband's name on the strange girl's lips. _How-?_ Then it clicked. Nikan hadn't been killed by a Hollow! That damned black robe girl must have killed him and made it look like a Hollow attack! Rage filled Katsuko, and she took off after the girl shinigami. _Kill you… I'll kill you!_

* * *

Hisana walked slowly through the empty construction site, looking around for the third soul the Hollow had pursued. "Hello!" she called out. "You can come out, mister! The monster's gone!" After a few minutes, she gave up. "Maybe he faded away on his own. I should probably get back to mom and find out how many years I'm going to be grounded…" Hisana said to herself.

"You're not going anywhere except the grave, murderer," a woman's cold voice said from behind her.

Hisana turned, drawing her zanpakuto. Her eyes widened in dismay when she saw a crimson robed shinigami before her, anger and hate etched on her face, her fingers white-knuckled from gripping her sword. _I'm such an idiot!_ "Murderer? That's rich coming from someone wearing those blood-stained robes."

"You killed Nikan," the red robed woman grated. "Don't you dare deny it, I heard you outside. I'm Nikan's wife Katsuko. You're going to die, scum."

"Funny, Nikan said the same thing before _he_ tried to kill _me_." Hisana shot back, getting angrier as she remembered how much pain the red robes had put her family through.

"Pummel, Roddokiba!" _[Fang Rod]_ Katsuko shouted.

Hisana stepped back warily as Katsuko's zanpakuto glowed blue and changed shape, shifting from a sword to a heavy flanged mace with a nasty-looking bladed head. The older woman charged forward, swinging the mace at Hisana, who dodged out of the way, then had to raise her sword to parry the follow-up blow. Even angling the strike away instead of blocking it outright, the hit sent a shock through Hisana's arms. _Crap, Nikan's wife is stronger than he was! That shikai's got a lot of power behind it!_

Hisana jumped back to give herself some breathing room, than pointed her zanpakuto at a downward angle and took a deep breath. "Scream, Kaze no Megami!" _[Wind Goddess]_

The blade of Hisana's zanpakuto melted away, folding back to engulf her right hand and flow up her arm in a shower of golden light brilliant enough to force Katsuko to shield her eyes. When the light faded, the sword was gone. In its place was a bladed gauntlet that enveloped Hisana's right hand up to the forearm. On the back of her hand was a golden oval in the shape of a mask, its features identical to Kaze no Megami's dream form, its eyes shut and its mouth closed in a thin line. The mask's metallic hair framed its face and flowed up to Hisana's shoulder, wrapping and forming a flexible sheath of armor around her right arm. From the mask's forehead, two thick locks of hair arced upward, becoming a pair of sharp, curved blades that extended thirty centimeters past Hisana's knuckles.

"So you have a shikai. That won't save your hide, you little bitch," Katsuko grated, launching forward in a renewed attack. Hisana raised her arm, catching the strike on the face of the mask and stopping it cold. Kaze no Megami's hair absorbed and dissipated the force of the impact, throwing Katsuko off balance. Hisana took advantage of her surprise to close in and drive a knee into the older woman's gut, glaring as Katsuko stumbled back.

"Get your facts straight, psycho," Hisana said angrily, "Nikan tried to kill me, a sixteen year old girl he'd never met before, just for wearing a black robe. The Hollow killed him; I was just trying to stay alive. From where I'm standing, your side is the one with all the murderers on it."

Hisana's words just seemed to make Katsuko angrier. "Shut up! I won't listen to any more of your lies!" she yelled, redoubling her efforts. Hisana sighed in frustration, blocking Katsuko's renewed attacks with the mask on the back of her hand or dodging them entirely. When Katsuko overextended herself, Hisana put her father's hakuda training to good use, darting inside the larger woman's guard to cut her with Kaze no Megami's blades or deliver a reiatsu-boosted punch or kick to somewhere sensitive before dancing away from her counterattack. Despite suffering a number of gashes and bruises and at least one broken rib, Katsuko kept coming with a constitution that amazed and dismayed Hisana. _What does it take to put this madwoman down?_

After taking a number of direct hits from Katsuko's massive mace, Hisana's zanpakuto began to hum slightly, vibrating against her arm. Katsuko noticed, and smirked when another swing connected and knocked Hisana back, Kaze no Megami's hair absorbing less of the impact. "Your toy there is reaching its limit, little girl. I'll break it and I'll break you."

Hisana returned a hard smile. "You think so, huh?" When Katsuko's next attack came, a powerful horizontal swing that would have torn Hisana in half, the younger shinigami jumped straight up and over the strike. At the apex of her leap she brought her hand up to cover the lower half of her face, pointing the mask's visage down at Katsuko. The mask's mouth opened in a wide "O", and Hisana saw the other woman's face go pale as she felt the surge of reiatsu, built up in Kaze no Megami's hair from all of Katsuko's attacks, each blow powerful enough to shatter concrete.

The mask _screamed_ from its open mouth, and the sonic blast hit Katsuko at point blank range, slamming her into the ground with vicious force. The pressure wave shook the whole area, and in the physical world people turned in surprise to look at hundreds of birds took wing, flying away from the construction site.

Hisana alighted back on the ground, coughing and waving her hand, surrounded by a thick cloud of dust. "Guess I shouldn't have aimed that down," she muttered, glancing at Kaze no Megami, whose mouth was closed once more. "At least you don't have to breathe this." She felt a faint trickle of amusement from her zanpakuto. "Or stand in it," Hisana added, realizing with dismay that her clothes and hair were being covered with settling concrete dust and dirt.

When the air cleared a bit, Hisana could see Katsuko lying at her feet in a shallow depression of cracked, buckled concrete created by the downward force of the sonic attack. The stunned red robe's zanpakuto – reverted to its sealed form – slipped from her fingers.

Hisana extended her left hand downward, palm open. "Bakudo No. 4: Hainawa," she chanted. A golden rope of reiatsu shot from her palm, snaking around Katsuko's body from shoulder to ankle before wrapping snugly around the fallen woman. Hisana closed her hand around her end of the rope, wrapping it around her wrist and getting a firm grip on it.

"Wake up," Hisana said. When Katsuko didn't respond, Hisana tightened her fist around the rope, and the length of it constricted around Katsuko's body, squeezing painfully. The red robe groaned, her eyes edging open. Hisana crouched over her. "I want some answers."

"You're going to be… waiting a while," Katsuko coughed. Struggling, she tested the strength of Hisana's Hainawa.

"Stop that. Shinigami a lot stronger than you have tried and failed," Hisana said irritably. She could hold either of her parents with ease, and both of them were stronger than Katsuko. By the end of the summer, she had been able to produce full incantation Bakudo that even her Aunt Karin couldn't break.

Hisana knew that was true because once her aunt had conceded defeat and asked Hisana to dispel the kido, her mother had stopped her and slyly suggested tickling Karin to make sure she wasn't just pretending; neither her aunt's indignation and then panic nor her helpless laughter had been feigned. Hisana reckoned it had been fair repayment for all the bruises and scrapes she racked up sparring with her father's frighteningly skilled sister.

When Katsuko ignored her and kept fighting the binding, Hisana squeezed the rope again, and its coils tightened further, drawing a pained gasp from Katsuko. "So you're going to torture me, is that it? I won't tell you anything," Katsuko grated.

"Why do you red robes hate us so much?" Hisana asked insistently. "Twenty years ago everyone wore the black. What changed? Was it the Gatekeeper?"

Katsuko sneered. "Stupid kid; you don't have a clue. Your kind's a dying breed; in another generation you'll all be gone."

Hisana tilted her head. "We both have zanpakuto; we use the same techniques, we bury souls, we're both called shinigami. What makes you different from me?"

"I'm on the winning side," Katsuko spat. She rolled over on her side and pointed her hand at Hisana. "Shakka-"

Hisana squeezed the rope as tightly as she could and it crushed Katsuko's body mercilessly, forcing the air out of her and disrupting her incantation. Hisana kept the pressure up until she could hear the older woman's ribs creaking, and the rope cut through her robe and skin in places before she eased up. "That's funny; it doesn't look like you're winning to me."

When Katsuko could breathe again she coughed blood, then laughed harshly. "You have no idea what's coming for you, black robe. They'll send stronger officers to kill you now."

"Maybe they will, but you won't live to see it," a new voice said in an emotionless tone. Hisana looked up in surprise as her mother stepped out of the fading dust cloud, looking seriously angry. "Stop playing and kill her, Hisana. We have to go, now."

"What?" Hisana looked at her mother, shocked.

Rukia looked at her coldly, and Hisana shivered. "How did you think this would end? That you'd have a fun little fight with a red robe, prove who's stronger and then you both go home like it's a kendo tournament?" Rukia shook her head. "This one can't be allowed to return to Seireitei. She's right, they would send stronger shinigami officers to hunt us. They would kill you, kill your father and I. They wouldn't spare your brother, either."

Hisana flinched. She had a horrible vision of her parents slaughtered, the Gatekeeper finishing the job he had started on the day of her birth. She imagined Tessai dying on the blade of a sword he could never see or avoid. "You made the choice to reveal yourself, Hisana," her mother said mercilessly. "This is the consequence. Now kill her and let's go."

Hisana looked down at Katsuko, and watched the red robe's face go pale as she saw the decision in Hisana's eyes. "I'm sorry," Hisana said in a ragged voice.

"Go to Hell," Katsuko growled, spitting in Hisana's face.

Wiping away the bloody flecks of saliva, Hisana rose to her feet. Dispelling her shikai, she sheathed the zanpakuto. Then she pointed her right hand at Katsuko, index finger extended like the tip of a spear. "Hado No 4: Byakurai," she said hoarsely, and a spear of white light lanced from her fingertip and through Katsuko's chest. The red robe's lungs released one last rattling breath, then the light left her eyes and she died. Trembling, Hisana let the Hainawa fade.

Other than the charring, the wound in Katsuko's chest looked like the one that had killed Nikan, and Hisana found herself shaking uncontrollably, remembered pain and fresh guilt filling her. Then her mother's arm was around her shoulders. "Ssh, it's all right, Hisana, it's done now," Rukia said, comforting, sounding like mom again. "Let's get you back into your body and home."

Hisana nodded, feeling drained and numb. She stumbled over to her body, sliding into it and putting away her soul dispenser, then glanced back when her mother didn't follow. Rukia had her palm pointed at Katsuko's body and a grim expression on her face. ""Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south! Hado No. 31: Shakkaho!" A sphere of red fire shot from Rukia's hand, enveloping Katsuko's corpse. When the light faded, there was nothing left but ash. "Always remember this, Hisana: If a red robe sees you, kill them and don't leave any evidence behind. Now let's go."

Hisana nodded silently, and fell in step beside her mother as they left the construction site behind.

* * *

"It's my fault, Lieutenant Abarai. I take full responsibility," Tomogoshi Kaname said with a deep bow as he stood in front of Renji's desk.

The tattooed red head looked up from the report Kaname had handed him and sighed. "Give me the short version, Kaname. How bad is it?"

"Are we speaking of Katsuko's death or her actions leading up to it?" Kaname asked quietly, shame lacing his voice.

"Both. What happened?" Renji answered.

"It appears," Kaname said heavily, "that Katsuko purposefully gathered unburied souls to lure Hollows. I can only assume she was attempting to draw out the Hollow that killed Nikan. I should have seen how deeply Nikan's death had affected her."

"Not your fault, Kaname," Renji replied. "I didn't tell you, but I made her go to a mental evaluation with the 4th Division before I approved her requested assignment. Either she fooled the experts, or she didn't crack until after she was in the living world." Renji sighed. "So the Hollow got her, I assume?"

Kaname shook his head. "No. We only have reiatsu traces to go by, since Katsuko's body appears to have been incinerated, but we picked up three reiatsu signatures at the site where she fought and died; one hers, all shinigami. She may have been right about Nikan not falling to a Hollow."

"Or she may have been wrong, and her actions attracted a black robe to bury the souls she left out." Seeing Kaname look at him in surprise, Renji waved his hand irritably. "It's not treason to acknowledge that those who wear the black still bury souls," he said, looking at his own crimson robes with private distaste. "The statisticians in the 12th Division confirm that more souls enter the Rukongai every year than our people bury."

"Let me go hunt these black traitors," Kaname pressed. "It's the least I can do for Katsuko."

"Request denied," the third person in the room said curtly. He was tall and slender, with long dark hair that flowed to his shoulders, three locks guided down the side of his face by a ceramic ornament. He wore impeccably tailored robes of deep crimson and the white haori of the 6th Division captain over it.

Kuchiki Byakuya turned from where he had stood looking out the window to gaze at Kaname, his aristocratic features stern. "If the involvement of the traitors in black is confirmed then this is now a matter for the 2nd Division. Deliver your report on Katsuko's death to their lieutenant. You are dismissed."

Kaname looked crestfallen, but he bowed silently to Renji and Byakuya before departing.

"I know how he feels," Renji said quietly once they were alone. "It's maddening to lose two of our own and be allowed to do nothing."

"You know that _he_ will never let either of us travel to the living world for another century at least," Byakuya replied, gazing up at the towering buildings that housed the 1st Division and the Captain-Commander. Only someone who had known Byakuya as long and as well as Renji would have heard the faintest trace of sadness in the man's perfectly controlled voice.

"That fact keeps me going, captain." When Byakuya raised one delicate eyebrow, Renji elaborated. "It's the day he allows us to return to Japan that I fear."

Byakuya considered that for a moment, then nodded. "As do I."


	5. A Dangerous Discovery

**Chapter Five: A Dangerous Discovery**

_The Living World – Twenty-one years after the Winter War_

Rononeji Tatsuho, senior Squad Leader in the Secret Mobile Unit, was a veteran spy and scout. He had served in the Punishment Force for more than a century, and he was very good at his job. His hair was gray now, and his face lined under the cloth mask that obscured everything but his eyes, yet his movements were as fluid and silent as always, wrapped in a midnight cloak that absorbed the light, he prowled the night of the Living World, flitting between rooftops, coming to rest on flagpoles and balconies, unseen by the mortals who thronged through the town in the evening.

Tatsuho and the men and women he commanded had been stationed in this area for almost a year now, ever since the deaths of two shinigami stationed in the area in a short time, one confirmed to have been killed by renegades who wore the black.

Tatsuho was struck by a moment of irony. The cloak he wore, an invention of a former officer of the 2nd Division that hid his reiatsu was black, and members of the Secret Mobile Unit were the only shinigami serving the present Captain-Commander who were still permitted to wear black. Even so, the combat outfit he wore under the cloak was actually red, dyed in a shade of crimson so deep it was nearly black, but red nonetheless.

In all the time they had been here, Tatsuho and his men had seen only Hollow, which they dispatched as a matter of course. They had found no trace of any renegade shinigami, but Tatsuho didn't allow himself to become distracted. Some of the younger men and women under him grew impatient, wishing for more challenging enemies to hunt, but he had lived long enough to learn patience. He and his squad could do no more than their best to scour this town and its surrounding villages for the black robes. It was not for him to say when the mission would end. That decision would come from an officer higher ranked than he, and if they were recalled, Tatsuho wanted to be able to say with a clear conscience that he had never stopped looking.

Crouching on an awning over a train station, Tatsuho sat back on his heels for a moment, and watched the living mill and flow on the street below. Even if any of them was spiritually gifted, they wouldn't see him. Sticking to the shadows was second nature to a veteran of the Secret Mobile Unit, and even the rare human who could detect reiatsu wouldn't know he was there with the cloak he wore concealing his spiritual energy.

Lost in thought, Tatsuho remained where he was for a while, until a snatch of music brought him crashing back into the present, a whistled melody from a _noh_ drama that had been popular in Seireitei in his youth. He looked up first, wondering if one of his squad had snuck up on him, but the sound came from below, among the living!

Tatsuho quickly located the whistler, a man approaching a healthy middle age, with long, dark hair that fell straight to his shoulders. He wore a modern business suit, and carried a cane and briefcase, the former of which he used to walk but did not appear to need. He was headed into the train station, and as he passed below, Tatsuho got a good look at his face for a moment.

Tatsuho's eyes widened in shock. The hair and the garb were different, but the cane was familiar, and the face he would recognize anywhere. Tatsuho sometimes reflected on the unfairness of a shinigami's lifespan being tied to their power; captains could live for almost a millennium, while he knew he would die of old age in less than half a century if battle didn't claim him first. But for an instant, Tatsuho was grateful that powerful shinigami didn't age quickly, as he looked at a face that hadn't changed significantly in more than a century, the face of the man who had designed the stealth cloak he wore, who had trained him how to use it: Urahara Kisuke.

He went completely still, a chill going down his spine. If Kisuke had seen him, had sensed him… well, Tatsuho had seen that cane in action. Suppressing the urge to flee, he sank deeper into the shadows. When moments passed and his life was not ended by a singing bolt of red energy, when the whistling faded, Tatsuho finally moved. Cupping his hands, he formed a hell butterfly. =_Urahara Kisuke spotted in surveillance area. I will tail him as long as I can.=_

For a moment, Tatsuho hesitated. Protocol dictated that he send the butterfly to his immediate superior, the 6th Seat of the 2nd Division. But Urahara Kisuke was known to be near the top of the "Find and Kill" list that the Captain-Commander had given to Captain Soifon shortly after his rise to power. Most of those names were crossed out now, but the one second from the top was not. Satisfied that those higher up the chain would want the information quickly, and considering the likelihood that he would not survive tailing one of the most dangerous shinigami alive to his destination, Tatsuho visualized the slender woman with twin braids ending in golden hoops, and tossed the hell butterfly aloft. It vanished, and Tatsuho moved.

Crossing rooftops, he made his way to the train platform. Hiding in the murk, he watched Kisuke board a train. As other passengers crowded on, Tatsuho made his way overhead, dropping cautiously onto the roof of a nearby car. He was taking a risk that Kisuke might spot him when he left the train, but he had to follow. Tatsuho pressed himself low against the roof of the train as it sped away from the city. As they headed out into the country, it got darker, and Tatsuho relaxed a bit. With each stop he hid himself as best he could and waited for the one Kisuke would disembark on.

It was almost an hour later when Kisuke left the train. Calling on every bit of his century of skill, Tatsuho followed. The former Captain of the 12th Division made his way to a nearby parking area, where he retrieved a motorcycle and rode off. Tatsuho followed along the road, sticking to the darkness and leaping rapidly from one tree to the next. When they crossed open fields, Tatsuho simply gained altitude and ran on the air. He would never have risked silhouetting himself against the stars if Kisuke had been on foot; he would have crawled through the fields. But the helmet Tatsuho's old mentor wore limited his field of vision, and though he looked back occasionally, he didn't look up far enough to see Tatsuho, who took care to avoid the reflected fields of vision the bike's mirrors offered.

Following the motorcycle until it vanished into the trees up a personal drive, Tatsuho hung back, moving carefully now through the trees to the home he could see, lit up against the darkness. Sticking to the shadows, he observed. He saw Kisuke get off the motorcycle, and nearly get tackled by a young boy who looked so much like the former captain that he was obviously a son. They went inside, and through windows Tatsuho got his second surprise of the night when he glimpsed the unburned half of a face that belonged to the name at the very top of the same list on the wall of Captain Soifon's office: Kuchiki Rukia. As they sat down to dinner, he noticed that the cook was the house's forth occupant, a tall teenage girl with long, dark hair, brown eyes and a slender frame corded with muscle. The four were joined at the table by two more people that Tatsuho didn't recognize; a Western man with light brown hair and blue eyes, and a Japanese woman in her thirties who resembled the teen girl.

After reconnoitering the rest of the property and assuring himself that there was no one else present, Tatsuho dispatched another hell butterfly with an update. Then he retreated further into the trees, near the road, and settled down to wait and watch.

* * *

_Seireitei_

In the spacious personal quarters of the Captain-Commander, the Gatekeeper sat on the floor behind his low desk, lamps burning around him to provide light as his pen drifted over the papers in front of him. A frown of concentration was etched on his cruel, gaunt face, his cold gray eyes glittering in irritation. Some of the Captain-Commander's duties that he had no interest in, like supervising the Shinigami Academy and encouraging the sniveling brats to excel, he could foist off on subordinates, but even when he delegated responsibility, there was always more paperwork, more decisions that needed his input.

The Gatekeeper shook his head ruefully, the silver orbs that capped his braids tinkling musically as he moved. Early in his tenure, he had even tried killing a few people for sending him things he didn't need to deal with, but even that didn't stop the flow of paperwork. Lower ranked officers just got their superiors to file things for them, people he needed enough that he couldn't summarily execute them. Finishing his reading of another document, he signed it and tossed it onto the "Done" pile.

Still, the Gatekeeper couldn't complain. He had known what the job would entail when his liege, the King of Seireitei, had sent him to arrest Yamamoto Genryusai and replace the old man as Captain-Commander of the Gotei 13. The job had its perks, anyways. Glancing down the hallway at the closed door to the bedroom where his consort was already sleeping, his thin lips twisted themselves into a cruel smile. Yes, ruling the Gotei 13 had many perks, of which she had been just one, if perhaps the most fun of all.

The Gatekeeper's reminiscence was interrupted when a red robed member of the Secret Remote Unit wearing their signature triangular straw hat alighted on the walkway beyond the open wall of his office and dropped to one knee. "Forgive me, Captain-Commander, Captain Soifon sends urgent news." Still kneeling, the messenger extended a scroll. Taking it irritably, the Gatekeeper broke the seal and opened it.

His irritation vanished almost immediately. When the messenger glanced up, he saw the sadistic smile on the Captain-Commander's face, and shivered. "You may go," the Captain-Commander said absently. When the messenger was gone, the Gatekeeper read the message again with a chuckle, then rolled it back up and put it on his desk.

"Chinatsu, come here," the Gatekeeper commanded. When he heard no footsteps, he turned to glower at the painted screen behind him in the corner of the room. Focusing his spiritual senses on the person behind the screen, he was infuriated to detect the fuzzy reiatsu of a sleeping soul. Flicking our his arm, the Gatekeeper let one of the small throwing knives in his sleeve fall into his hand, then hurled it at the screen in a single motion. It pierced through the screen, which already had a few other small holes in it. He heard it slice cloth and flesh before embedding itself in the wall with a solid "thunk".

"Oww…" a sleepy young voice complained from behind the screen.

"Get out here now or you'll get worse, whelp," the Gatekeeper warned. He heard a panicked squeak and then a patter of feet.

A fourteen year old girl rushed out from behind the screen and fell to her knees before him. "Sorry, sir," she gasped. Chinatsu was thin and coltish, in the middle of a growth spurt and all gangling knees and elbows. She was still flat-chested and boyish in appearance, although her wide, expressive grey eyes and face were more feminine. She wasn't aided by her shocks of straight orange hair, cut messily short like a boy's, as though trimmed with the blade of her own sword, a short, curved blade whose scabbard she clutched tightly even as she knelt before him. She wore a short-sleeved white tunic and pants that came down to mid-calf, her feet bare. Her right sleeve was rent open and blood was staining the cloth red, but she seemed not to notice it.

"You were asleep," he said flatly, his voice heavy with displeasure.

"I'm sorry sir," Chinatsu squeaked. "It's been so long since this morning and I didn't have any lunch… or dinner,"

The Gatekeeper considered. She had attended him in the morning and carried a few messages for him. Had he forgotten to let her leave before he departed for the day to perform a division inspection? She knew better than to leave her place without his express command, so she would have stood there behind the screen all day, waiting. It didn't matter; there was no excuse for falling asleep while she was expected to be alert and ready.

Without changing expression, the Gatekeeper backhanded Chinatsu, sending her sprawling onto the floor. She winced, rubbing her cheek gingerly. She glanced up at him to see if he was done. When he didn't strike her again, she got up and knelt before him again. "I don't want to hear excuses, Chinatsu," he said coldly. "Fall asleep on duty again and we'll see if hanging from your wrists for a day will aid you in remaining awake."

Chinatsu's face went pale and she shivered, unconsciously rubbing her slender wrists as though imagining it. She pressed her forehead to the floor. "Yes, sir. I'm sorry sir, I'll try harder."

"I hope so," he said. "Now, go find that muscle-headed Captain of the 11th Division and tell him to come here immediately. I don't care if he's asleep, drunk or just out hitting something with his zanpakuto, I want him here within the hour or you will be punished." When the Gatekeeper paused and gave her his familiar, sadistic smile, dread joined hunger in gnawing at her gut. "Since you've already rested, after you find him and deliver my message, you can relieve his men standing guard duty outside the 11th Division Barracks and remain there until dawn." Chinatsu couldn't suppress a groan of dismay. She'd just fallen asleep before he woke her with his throwing knife. Now she wouldn't get any sleep at all tonight. Maybe if she was lucky one of the gate guards would at least take pity and give her something to eat. "Do you understand?" he growled.

Swallowing hard, Chinatsu nodded and jumped to her feet, ignoring how much they ached after standing barefoot on the wooden floor all day and trying not to think about how they'd feel after spending the rest of the night standing at attention on the hard stones outside the 11th Division's gate. She dashed for the exit, tying her sword to her sash as she went. "And heal yourself," the Gatekeeper snapped irritably. "I don't want you bleeding on the floor."

Chinatsu paused, having forgotten about the shallow cut on her arm from his throwing knife. Pain had been her companion so often that it was easy to forget that she was hurt sometimes, especially when she was trying her best to avoid incurring even more pain. She stood still long enough to press her left hand to the cut on her right arm. Yellow light flashed beneath her palm for a moment, and when it faded, the gash in her skin was gone and the cloth of her sleeve was mended and pristine. She didn't waste time healing the bruise on her cheek where he had struck her; she doubted anyone would care, or comment if they did. Most people in Seireitei didn't know what Chinatsu looked like _without_ a bruised face, black eye or split lip. Running outside, she leapt into the air, forcing reiatsu into her tired feet. She blurred into the distance and was gone.


	6. Conflict and Sacrifice

**Chapter Six: Conflict and Sacrifice**

_The Living World_

Rononeji Tatsuho was maintaining his watch on the home of Urahara Kisuke and his fellow fugitives. Day had broken, and Urahara Kisuke had departed along with Rukia (no longer a Kuchiki but a Kurosaki, as Tatsuho had learned eavesdropping on the house's residents) and the young boy, Tessai. The American David Crane, his wife Kurosaki Karin, and their niece Kurosaki Hisana remained behind.

Tatsuho had learned a great deal in the last twelve hours, much of it disturbing. The young boy and the American were unknowns, but Tatsuho knew that the other four were all spiritually aware. Kisuke and Rukia were former shinigami officers, and the Kurosaki family was famous in Seireitei even after the new Captain-Commander had forbidden any open mention of their name. Yet he could not sense reiatsu from any of them, which made it impossible to gauge the strength of the Kurosaki women. They were all concealing their reiatsu without any technological aid.

When Kisuke and Rukia had left, Tatsuho had considered following them, but rejected the idea. This was their home and they would return; more importantly, he needed to be ready for the reinforcements that were sure to arrive soon by senkai gate. Instead, he had dispatched a Hell Butterfly to his second in command, ordering the rest of the squad to keep an eye on the pair.

As though the thought had summoned it, Tatsuho sensed a surge of reiatsu and spied a blue glow through the trees. He hissed in dismay. If he felt it, likely at least one of the people in the house had as well. He had recommended gating in additional personnel farther away, but someone had chosen to ignore his recommendation. Quickly, he darted through the trees, making his way to the senkai gate.

Tatsuho arrived as it closed, and dropped to one knee before the pair who had emerged from it. The taller of the pair wore the tattered, sleeveless white haori of the 11th Division captain, the leader of the combat specialist division. His head was bald, and his wide set eyes were colored red on the upper lids and corners. Behind him was a slender, handsome man with shimmering raven hair and red and gold feathers woven around his right eye who wore the insignia of the 11th Division's lieutenant.

"Captain Ikkaku. Lieutenant Ayasegawa. Welcome. The fugitives Kisuke and Rukia have left the area. My men are tailing them." Tatsuho said, even as he winced internally at the incredible amount of reiatsu that poured off of the powerful pair of veteran fighters. There was no hope for surprise now. It wasn't his job to question the decisions of the captain commander, but he had to wonder all the same why a captain capable of stealth like Soifon of the 2nd Division hadn't been dispatched to deal with the renegades.

"We've been briefed on the situation," Lieutenant Ayasegawa Yumichika replied while Captain Ikkaku Madarame scanned the surrounding area, sheathed zanpakuto slung over his shoulder. "Those two are of secondary importance. Your last report mentioned a teen girl living with them. Who is she?"

Tatsuho blinked in surprise at their dismissal of Kisuke and Rukia. He hadn't learned the identity of Karin or Hisana until after his last Hell Butterfly was dispatched. "The girl is Kurosaki Hisana, Rukia's daughter. Her aunt, Kurosaki Karin and her uncle, an American, are all here."

Madarame and Yumichika exchanged a sober glance. "Might as well get this over with, then," Madarame said heavily. "Come on; let's go kidnap Ichigo's little girl." The 11th Division Captain made no effort to conceal his disdain for the mission. Tatsuho bowed, and then lead the pair at a run through the trees to the house.

* * *

Three heads came up at once in the house as a gentle pulse of reiatsu was followed by a pair of massive surges. The air became heavy with a saturation of spiritual energy. Karin's face went pale, and David's expression set into a hard mask. "That's not good," he observed. "I sense two of them; one's captain-class."

Hisana winced, horror filling her. "Oh, God, this is all my fault. How could I have been so stupid?" She had been grounded for months after her fight against Katsuko, and her parents still wouldn't let her go back to town at all.

Karin shook her head. "We don't know that. Besides, this is what we've been training for. Come on; get out of your body." Hisana swallowed hard and nodded, eating her mod soul and separating from her body as Karin did the same. Her aunt didn't suggest running, and Hisana knew why. In their bodies they couldn't outrun shinigami that strong, and leaving their bodies behind would be suicide. They commanded their bodies to hide in the training ground and saw them safely to the workshop. Then the pair made their way outside, David following behind them.

They emerged into the open yard behind the house a few moments before a trio of shinigami strode out of the trees. Karin's eyes narrowed in recognition. David rolled his head around his neck and shook his arms, stretching his muscles. Hisana just watched, heart hammering, struggling to control her fear.

She sensed immediately that the bald one with a captain's haori over his crimson robes was the strongest. The handsome man with dark hair who moved out to the left wore a lieutenant's badge and radiated almost as much power as his captain. His finely tailored dark red uniform was accented with a wisteria-colored scarf around his neck and shoulders. The third opponent was covered in dark cloth from head to toe like a ninja, carried a short blade and cast off no reiatsu; Hisana realized with surprise that he wore a cloak like the one her stepfather had shown her that masked reiatsu. Comprehension dawned on her. That one must have found them and summoned reinforcements.

Karin spoke first, glaring at the shaven headed captain and his lieutenant. "I remember you two. Madarame and Yumichika," she said in a voice heavy with anger. "Ichigo was your friend, you traitors. Madarame, you stood with him at his wedding! How dare you serve his murderer?" Karin had the momentary satisfaction of seeing the pair flinch, guilt and regret plain on their faces.

Madarame shook his head sadly. "He's the Captain-Commander, Karin. He has the King's Writ. Our oaths as officers of the Gotei 13 compel us to serve the King's appointed commander."

"That sounds like a coward's justification," Karin spat scornfully. "Did you even try to stop him?"

Madarame's face darkened and a vein pulsed in his forehead at being called a coward, but it was Yumichika who answered. "Komamura did," he said quietly. "He went berserk when the Gatekeeper came to arrest Old Man Yamamoto. He's dead now. The Gatekeeper killed him without even breathing hard. There isn't a 7th Division anymore, either. The next day light fell from the heavens and obliterated their barracks; the wrath of the King himself. So I hope you'll forgive us, but she," Yumichika pointed at Hisana, "is coming with us."

"Over my dead body," Karin grated, drawing her zanpakuto. "So where's Kenpachi? Did he become one of the Gatekeeper's personal bootlickers too?"

"Kenpachi dropped his haori at the Gatekeeper's feet and walked away when he was ordered to put on the red. Yachiru went with him. Even blew a raspberry at the Gatekeeper," Madarame said with a note of pride in his voice. "I would have done the same, but the Captain-Commander decreed that the 11th would join the 7th in oblivion if I didn't replace Zaraki, so not a lot of choice there." The bald captain shook his head. "Enough talking; give us the girl or fight."

"Well I guess talking isn't going to solve this. Dear, do you want the bald one or the fancy one?" David asked Karin, a feral gleam in his eye.

"Madarame's mine. Go ahead and kill his strutting peacock for me," Karin replied. David glanced at Yumichika and tilted his head towards the forest. The lieutenant smirked and then nodded in assent, and the pair disappeared into the trees. "Hisana, you're going to have to take out the one dressed like a ninja. Judging by his garb he's a member of the Secret Mobile Unit. You're most likely stronger than he is, but don't underestimate him; he's probably better hand to hand than you are, and members of his unit are full of tricks and never fight fair, so do whatever you need to and don't let your guard down for a second." That said, Karin launched herself at Madarame, who drew his own weapon and met her head-on, a wide grin on his face. Then Tatsuho attacked Hisana, and she had no more time to spare worrying about her aunt.

* * *

As soon as Yumichika disappeared into the trees with David, he performed a series of shunpo, curious to see if the American could keep up. When he reached the next clearing he paused and glanced back, disappointed to see that the gaijin was no longer behind him. He cast out his spiritual senses to locate his wayward opponent, and then turned in surprise. David stepped out of the trees on the far side of the clearing. "Your skill with hoho is decent, but you're no match for my hirenkyaku," he observed sardonically.

Yumichika's eyes widened a fraction. "You're a-"

David held out his right hand, a white gold ring with an embedded cross formed of four sapphires on his ring finger. The gems became luminous and then the ring vanished in a flash, the aura solidifying into a modern-looking pistol formed of blue light nestled in the American's grip. "I am. You may have wiped out Japan's Quincy, but I assure you, the Western families are still very much alive."

Yumichika's eyes narrowed, his usual air of indifference replaced with deadly concentration. "Vandenreich scum; killing you will be a pleasure." He drew his zanpakuto, darting forward to strike at David, who flashed away. Yumichika sensed hardened reiatsu headed his way and barely ducked away from a streak of light that passed by his face.

"That's a bit offensive," David said calmly from his perch on a tree branch above and behind the shinigami, his gun leveled at Yumichika. "It's like meeting a German for the first time and calling him a Nazi. The Vandenreich were a bunch of insane extremists, and the world is better off without them. But don't forget shinigami, your kind started the war that created the Vandenreich. The saddest thing is how unnecessary it was."

Yumichika sniffed in distaste. "The only mistake we made was leaving any of your kind alive after the first war. I won't repeat that mistake." He stepped into a shunpo, appearing before David and launching a horizontal slash at him.

David caught the strike on the barrel of his gun, sparks flying. He grinned, and then head butted Yumichika, slamming his forehead into the shinigami's nose and then following up with a kick to the chest as Yumichika stumbled back in surprise. He didn't follow up on his advantage, leaning back against the tree's trunk. "Straight to genocide, I see," David observed. "Ever wonder if that's why Aizen Sosuke almost succeeded here? Because you shinigami don't have any friends?"

Yumichika pressed his hand to his face, wincing when it came away bloody. "You almost broke my nose, you peasant!" he growled. Dropping into a combat stance, he ran his hand over his zanpakuto's blade. "Bloom, Fuji Kujaku!" The blade curved, and then split into a fan of four falx blades. Then the American brought up his gun again, and Yumichika had to dodge a series of deadly accurate shots. Seven streaks of blue light came at him as he broke into a run. Then they stopped, and Yumichika glanced up at the Quincy to see him wrapping both hands around the gun's grip. His reiatsu surged faintly. Even as Yumichika took advantage of the opening to close with David, the gun came back up and Yumichika had to dodge another volley. He could sense the strength of the near misses, and knew that getting hit with one would hurt.

After David had fired another eight shots Yumichika accelerated into a shunpo, and David had to dodge away. Yumichika chased him, and it took the Quincy a few moments to get far enough away from the shinigami to put reiatsu back into his gun again. In that moment of distraction Yumichika closed again, and David didn't get away clean, Fuji Kujaku slicing open a shallow gash in his leg before he could open fire and force Yumichika back.

"Keep running Quincy," Yumichika taunted. "You can't hit me with that ugly weapon of yours, and if you run too far, I'll just leave you and go grab the girl."

David scowled, and halted, his next volley grazing Yumichika's shoulder, but when his eight shots were gone, the shinigami closed in for the kill. Yumichika saw an amused expression on the Quincy's face, and felt a moment of alarm before David's gun came back up. He pulled the trigger, and a ninth shot hit Yumichika in the gut, tearing clean through him and exiting through his back. His eyes cold and focused, David dodged Yumichika's descending slash, elbowed him in the chest, whirled and kicked him in the face, and then fired two more shots, one into each of Yumichika's legs, as he flew backward from the force of the blows. Yumichika's back hit a tree trunk hard, and his vision went red for a moment as the impact jarred the painful wound in his stomach. He slumped to the ground, gasping in pain. He retained his grip on his zanpakuto and tried to rise despite the pain, but the wounds on his legs prevented him, and he fell to his knees.

David looked down at him coldly. "A Quincy's weapon can fire until his reiatsu is gone, pretty boy. Being limited to a set number of attacks is a weakness of shinigami weapons, not ours."

Pressing a hand to the hole in his gut, Yumichika gasped in pain, vision blurring for a moment. "Well fought, Quincy," he admitted.

David crouched near him, resting his gun on his knee. "It didn't have to be like this, shinigami. Ishida Soken had the right idea, and you all just ignored him and let him die. It could be so different. All over the world now, Quincy like me partner with black robes like Karin who survived your purge and escaped here. I weaken them, my wife buries them. We're more effective together, and no souls are destroyed this way. It's working everywhere but here in Japan where you chose your own little war of mutual extinction instead. How much shorter would your Winter War have been if you'd had Quincy as strong as the Vandenreich fighting with you instead of against you?"

Yumichika coughed, blood flecking his lips. "Maybe you're right, Quincy. But I don't have the luxury of living in the past. The present is all I can change, and too many people are relying on me to give up here." Yumichika's eyes focused despite the pain, and he grabbed the wisteria-colored scarf around his neck, tugging it off and flinging it away. "Split and Deviate, Ruri'iro Kujaku!"

David's eyes widened in alarm as the steel blades of Yumichika's zanpakuto melted into blue-green vines. He jumped back, but the zanpakuto's tendrils multiplied and shot out on every direction, one he couldn't avoid snagging his ankle. Like an octopus, the zanpakuto's other limbs struck, wrapping around his arms, legs, neck and torso. He got off a few shots at Yumichika, but the tendrils blocked and absorbed the bolts. Then Ruri'iro Kujaku started draining David's reiatsu, his weapon losing form and winking out of existence as the flower buds on the vines began to fill with David's power. "You have… bankai?" David gasped, surprise plain on his face. He struggled against the vines, which only squeezed tighter in response.

"I'm afraid not," Yumichika said, forcing himself to his feet. One of the blossoms near him opened, and he plucked it from the vine, biting off a petal. Feeling his body weakening, David watched as Yumichika's wounds faded. "This is my zanpakuto's true shikai. The other form is a limited release that I achieve by using a name that my zanpakuto's spirit doesn't care for. I don't like using this release, it's a bit like cheating for a member of the 11th Division, but as I said… there's too much riding on this for me to just give up."

"Damn it…" All of the energy drained from his body, David's vision blurred, and he passed out.

Yumichika felt the Quincy lose consciousness, and as he had done in his battle with Hisagi Shuhei years earlier reined in his zanpakuto before it drained the last of David's energy and killed him.

Slinging David's unconscious form over his shoulder, Yumichika sighed. "Ugly **and** heavy. Figures." With a leisurely pace he made his way back towards Madarame and the Kurosaki girl, not wanting to arrive too soon and spoil his friend's fight.

* * *

Hisana felt David's reiatsu drop, but didn't have time to worry about it, dodging a pair of shuriken from two different directions and sending a third pinging off of her released zanpakuto. Grimacing, Hisana darted behind a tree and felt a few more projectiles embed themselves in the trunk.

_Aunt Karin was right about these ninja jerks not fighting fair._ As soon as Karin and Madarame had started fighting Tatsuho had attacked her, driving her into the trees. As soon as she was out of Karin's sight, three more Stealth Force ninja had joined the fight. All of them wore the same uniform, and they all had the damned reiatsu cloaks, so she couldn't sense any of them. The fact that she was still alive told Hisana that she outclassed any of the four individually; she was faster than they were, and other than Tatsuho they all avoided getting anywhere near her and Kaze no Megami's blades. Instead, Tatsuho's subordinates hid in the dense tree cover and threw shuriken at her from all angles while Tatsuho attacked her close in, wielding his wakazashi with lightning speed. Irritatingly, while Tatsuho wasn't as fast as Hisana was, she could tell he was just as skilled with hakuda, and had a lot more combat experience. Hisana was already bleeding from a few shallow cuts, nothing serious, but small wounds could add up, and she hadn't been able to do much damage to Tatsuho or his minions.

Worse, Tatsuho's stabbing attacks and the thrown weapons didn't have much force behind them, leaving Kaze no Megami with little energy to absorb. Hisana was confident she could surprise Tatsuho with her zanpakuto's scream and take him out, but she was getting tired, and the golden mask was nowhere near having enough energy to launch that attack. Realizing she'd have to change strategies, Hisana waited until another shuriken came buzzing at her and leapt back, extending her free hand towards its source. "Shakkaho!" Hisana yelled, putting as much power as she could into the kido, which wasn't much with no incantation, firing it at the source of the shuriken. The orb of red fire didn't explode in her hand at least, flying in a straight line from Hisana's palm and detonating as it hit the area where the shuriken's owner had been. Twisting in midair, Hisana planted her feet on the trunk of a tree behind her and pushed off, flying past Tatsuho before he could react and right into the cloud of smoke from the kido blast.

It was a risk, jumping blind into the cloud, and Hisana winced as bits of wood and debris pelted her, but her gamble paid off when she emerged from the smoke right next to the coughing, fleeing ninja. Before her opponent could get away, Hisana reached out and grabbed the ninja's wrist. "Tsuzuri Raiden."

The ninja thrashed helplessly, enveloped in electricity from head to toe. When the kido faded Hisana grabbed her opponent in an arm lock and pressed her zanpakuto's twin blades to the ninja's throat, putting her own back to a tree with a wide trunk and forcing her captive in front of her as a shield. Fortunately, she'd gotten the smallest of the ninja, a woman not much larger than herself. "Move and I take your head," Hisana growled.

It didn't take long for Tatsuho and the other two ninja to emerge from the trees. Tatsuho emerged low, while his remaining subordinates both landed on the same branch, shuriken at the ready. "Back off!" Hisana warned, digging Kaze no Megami's blades into the ninja girl's neck, breaking the skin. Her captive squirmed, and Hisana had to wrench her arm painfully to still her.

Tatsuho just shook his head, eyes sad. "Your capture is the order of the Captain-Commander. Even if you kill my subordinate, I cannot disobey that order. Surrender and you have my word you won't be harmed."

Hisana was surprised to hear him say that, because he obviously thought she had a lot less information than she did. He was lying; she knew the Captain-Commander would kill her for being a Kurosaki. She wasn't sure why there had been any mention of capture, but she knew surrender wasn't an option.

A plan formulating in her mind, Hisana let her shoulders sag. "You promise you won't hurt me? I don't understand any of this, I haven't done anything wrong!" she injected a tremor of uncertainty into her voice, trying to sound younger and less sure.

Tatsuho and his subordinates relaxed a bit. "I swear it. You won't be harmed," Tatsuho said soothingly.

Hisana hated him for that lie, but continued acting the part, nodding and pushing the ninja girl away, using her captive's body to hide her movements. _I'll only get once chance at this,_ she thought as she brought her open hand up, pointing it at the pair of ninja standing on a thick branch above Tatsuho. "Hado No. 33, Sokatsui!" Even the abbreviated incantation was a risk. Both of them were moving when the last syllable left Hisana's lips, but they had let their guard down for a fraction of a second, and that proved fatal. A huge wave of blue fire erupted from Hisana's hand. Both ninja were enveloped in the blast and fell out the far side smoking and burned, dropping to the ground limply. Before the third ninja could flee, Hisana slammed a hard elbow into the back of her neck, knocking her out too.

"Byakurai!" Hisana yelled, pointing her finger at Tatsuho. The ninja leader's reflexes saved him from a killing blow, but the beam hit, burning a hole through his left upper arm.

Hisana looked up at Tatsuho's shocked face as he gripped his wounded arm. "Liar!" she spat. "Your precious Captain-Commander butchered my whole family. You can't guarantee anything."

Tatsuho's eyes narrowed and Hisana could see the hate in them. This wasn't a job anymore. It was personal now. _Good,_ she thought. The ninja switched his blade to a reverse grip in his right hand, his left arm hanging limp. He attacked with a roar of anger.

Hisana was forced on the defensive. She had been fighting for quite some time, and on top of that had cast four kido spells in the space of a few minutes, including the powerful and draining Sokatsui. She felt exhausted, and even with his arm injured, Tatsuho had more energy. But after they crossed blades a few times Hisana realized that she had gained the upper hand without the ninja leader realizing it. He had abandoned subtlety, hacking at her with his blade, and Kaze no Megami started to hum. Perhaps if Tatsuho had been less enraged he would have noticed the change in his opponent's weapon, but he only continued to attack. A minute later Tatsuho overextended himself, and Hisana ducked under his swing. She took a hard elbow to the side, and cried out in pain as she felt a rib crack, but she finished her motion, slamming Kaze no Megami's face into Tatsuho's chest. The mask's mouth opened just centimeters from his body. Hisana turned her head away as her zanpakuto's scream hit the ninja leader's body. When Hisana raised her head, Tatsuho was sprawled on the ground, senseless.

Gasping in relief, Hisana focused on the remaining sources of reiatsu. David's was weak, while his opponent seemed to remain at full strength. Hisana whistled to herself when she sensed her Aunt's reiatsu; Karin's power was at the same level as the captain she faced.

Focusing on the present, Hisana checked on her downed opponents. Her mother's harsh lesson was still fresh in her memory, but she reasoned there was no point in killing these shinigami; the red robes already knew where they were. Instead, she used a full incantation Bakudo No. 1: Sai on them. She knew none of them would have the strength to break free themselves, and it would take almost a day to wear off.

With that done, Hisana sensed David's opponent moving towards her aunt, and did the same, wincing at the pain from her cracked rib. "Doesn't matter," she murmured. "Have to be ready to help Aunt Karin." She made her way through the trees as quickly as she could.

* * *

Karin and Madarame exchanged only a few blows with their sealed zanpakuto before she stepped back. "I don't have time to play, Madarame. Release your zanpakuto," she said.

"Fair enough," Madarame said with a twisted grin, slamming his zanpakuto's hilt into the scabbard. "Grow, Hozukimaru!" The two pieces blended together, forming a nagitana with a red horsehair tassel on the pommel.

Karin spun her blade in one hand until it blurred. "Strike out, Koruku Daseki!" _[Cork Bat]_ A blinding pillar of blue reiatsu erupted from Karin's body, forcing Madarame to shield his eyes and dig his heels in. When the light faded enough to see, he saw Karin step forward, haloed by reiatsu, her eyes almost glowing with an inner light. The weapon in her hand was no longer a sword. The handle was almost fifty centimeters long, black metal wrapped in gray boar hide. On the bottom of the hilt was a rounded pommel. The top of the hilt had no guard. Instead the weapon flared out into a cylindrical body that was 20 centimeters wide and 1.5 meters long from the hilt to the rounded top, all made of the same black metal. The size of the weapon reminded Madarame of Ichigo's shikai release, but it looked to be at least twice the mass of Ichigo's oversized blade. "That thing kind of does look like a baseball bat," Madarame observed laconically.

Karin gave him a humorless smile. "Well, that bald head of yours looks like a baseball. Let's play." Lunging forward in an attack, Karin swung the massive weapon with ease in a horizontal strike. Madarame blocked the swing with the haft of his nagitana, felt the wood flex and groan – and found himself airborne, thrown back by the force of the strike. Twisting in midair, he got his feet under him and skidded to a stop. Karin didn't give him any time to think, and he had to dodge a few more swings. Puzzled, he experimentally angled her next strike away, and was impressed again by the sheer force of the hit. Even expecting it, he was pushed back a few paces, and she kept coming.

Going on the offensive, Madarame launched a flurry of thrusts at Karin, forcing her to defend. Yet she avoided his blows easily. For all the size of the weapon she wielded, she could move it as quickly as a sealed sword, yet when she attacked it hit with the force of a much heavier weapon.

As he ducked under another of Karin's disturbingly fast swings and thrust his spear at her legs, making her jump up to avoid the attack, it clicked. "Your zanpakuto's power is like Izuru Kira's," Madarame observed. "It controls weight."

Karin grinned. "Not quite; Koruku Daseki's just a bit of a cheater. He doesn't change your weight, he alters his own mass: light as a feather, heavy as a mountain. Like this." Flashing forward at Madarame, she brought her zanpakuto down at him in an overhead strike. Madarame jumped back, but Karin's strike continued down, hitting the ground with a boom. A cloud of dirt and debris flew up in the air, and Madarame was pelted with sharp fragments of rock. Madarame lost sight of Karin in the dust cloud for a moment, but caught sight of her as she came in from the side again for another downward strike. He sent her weapon into the ground again with an angled deflection, throwing up another plume of dust. He launched a quick riposte at her as she lifted her massive weapon out of the crater. It struck close enough to her face that he saw severed hair drift past her cheek. Eyes narrowing, Karin pointed her index finger at Madarame, who started moving sideways, expecting a kido attack.

"Sho," Karin said, her hand tracking Madarame's movement. The impact kido hit him square in the forehead, snapping his head back.

Blue sky and green canopy flashed across Madarame's vision, and he staggered back. He'd been expecting a Byakurai, which he could have dodged, but Sho, while it did no penetrating damage and was the weakest of the Hado spells, was invisible and had no travel time. When Madarame turned his gaze back to Karin, his eyes widened in alarm; her massive weapon was aimed straight at him. He barely ducked under the swing, and couldn't dodge her follow up kick that slammed into the side of his head hard enough to set his ears ringing.

Madarame felt grudging admiration for Ichigo's sister as the fight wore on. Her weapon was so big that her attacks weren't hard to dodge, but he couldn't block them either; her zanpakuto was powerful enough to break Hozukimaru's haft if he tried. Her proficiency with kido and hakuda was taking its toll; he was accruing small wounds from Hado and reiatsu-enhanced kicks without doing much damage to Karin in return. Her fighting style of blinding speed, powerful zanpakuto blows and rapid-fire low level kido spells frustrated his preferred combat method of getting up close and pounding away at opponents. He suspected that either her late brother or Urahara Kisuke had briefed her on his abilities; of all the captains of the Gotei 13, Madarame was honest enough with himself to admit that he had the weakest shikai release. He relied on experience and toughness to see him through. Madarame's grin widened. It didn't matter if it took him a while to finish this fight; it was fun! He hadn't gotten to fight anyone as strong as Kurosaki Karin in a long time.

Madarame could sense Karin's irritation building as he avoided her most dangerous attacks, accepted the weaker ones that hit him, and got in jabs at her where he could, cutting her in a few places with shallow wounds. He realized that she really did believe she needed to finish the fight quickly, and started to wonder if the Captain-Commander had been correct when he had dismissed Kisuke and Rukia as threats. Madarame was confident that either he or Yumichika could take Rukia, but the Kisuke he knew could have finished both of them without breathing hard. Had the former 12th Division captain really lost his power as the Gatekeeper claimed?

Karin stepped up her attack, her reiatsu burning even brighter, and Madarame found it harder to avoid her zanpakuto strikes. Seeing a feral gleam in her eyes he jumped back from her swing and felt his back hit a solid surface, bouncing off of it and back into the path of her zanpakuto. From the corner of his eye he saw a faint curtain of white light behind him, disintegrating already just from being hit by the reiatsu of his body. He cursed mentally, realizing that she'd cast a barrier without any incantation, weak and costly in reiatsu, but effective in putting him in this situation. There was no time to dodge or deflect; Madarame grimaced and blocked the attack directly. As he'd feared Hozukimaru's haft splintered, Karin's massive metal bat tearing through the wood of his weapon. Barely slowed, her zanpakuto slammed into his chest, and he felt at least one rib break. Then he was flying backward, his progress stopped abruptly by the trunk of a fairly large tree.

Madarame had to roll as a shadow loomed over him, hearing wood explode as Karin's follow up blow tore through the trunk of the tree he'd hit. He was peppered with splinters, and his wounded ribs protested at his acrobatics. Grimacing in distaste even as he did it, Madarame scooped up a handful of dirt and threw it in Karin's face as she lunged at him again. Then he used a shunpo to put some distance between them. Regretfully, he glanced at his broken shikai and at Karin scrubbing at her eyes. "I think she might actually win if I keep up like this," Madarame observed to no one in particular, feeling a pulse of lazy agreement from his zanpakuto. "This is not the way I'd like to end this fight, but I don't think the Captain-Commander was kidding when he said he'd wipe out the 11th Division if we fail to bring him that girl," Madarame said, too softly for Karin to hear. As she glared at him and lunged forward to resume her attack, Madarame slammed the broken halves of his zanpakuto together. "Bankai: Ryumon Hozukimaru!"

Karin swore quietly, halting as she was buffeted by waves of enhanced reiatsu. "Guess it was too much to hope that two 11th Division captains in a row would lack a bankai," she muttered. When the light of the bankai release faded, she peered at her opponent, and then blinked. "You just had to one-up me, didn't you?"

Madarame laughed, a massive half-moon blade hovering over his shoulders, and an oversized monk's spade and guan dao with shortened hafts in his hands, all connected to each other by massive chains. "I don't like using this, but duty demands it. I don't suppose you'd reconsider surrendering."

Karin shook her head. "I broke your shikai, and I'll break your bankai. I already said it: you're taking Hisana over my dead body." Without another word she resumed her attack.

With his bankai, Madarame could meet her head on at last. The impacts of her zanpakuto sent shocks down his arms, but in this form Hozukimaru could take the punishment. Now she had to avoid his counterattacks too. Even with a full release, she was still frustratingly agile, and he had no more luck hitting her than she had hitting him. He didn't need to win though; he just needed to keep her from winning. His spiritual senses weren't as good as Yumichika's but he could sense that his lieutenant had won his battle and was skirting around his fight. Yumichika knew the mission, and would make sure the Kurosaki girl didn't try to flee.

Madarame didn't know how long the fight could have lasted if Karin hadn't felt pressured to defeat him quickly, but her attacks grew more reckless as she tried to land a decisive hit. Meanwhile, Madarame could feel the warm red light of Hozukimaru's dragon crest filling with reiatsu, and when she made a mistake, he was ready for it. Karin overextended herself a fraction too much on a swing. Madarame poured his bankai's extra energy into speed, and knocked her weapon out of position with the monk's spade, then brought the blade of his guan dao down hard. She tried to get out of the way, but the blade was too big and moving too fast; his zanpakuto bit deep into her, opening a long slice down the front of her body from her right shoulder to left hip.

Karin's eyes went wide, and blood spurted from the wound as she collapsed to her knees, then prone on the ground, zanpakuto slipping from her fingers. Blood slowly pooled around her.

* * *

Hisana was running through the trees when she felt the enemy captain's reiatsu surge past her aunt's power level. Concern filling her, she ran as fast as she could, willing her weariness and injuries to let her make it in time. She was close when she felt her aunt's reiatsu drop to almost nothing. "No!" she screamed, bursting into the clearing. Her heart ached when she saw Karin on the ground, blood pouring from a nasty wound. She saw the bald captain's weapon rise to strike, and put on one last, desperate burst of speed. She got her zanpakuto up to block his blow, quailing at the massive size of the guan dao plunging at her. When it hit it shattered Kaze no Megami's blades and cut a gouge into the mask, and Hisana's hand went numb from the force of the blow. Shaking her arm gingerly, Hisana paled when she saw the angry look on his face.

"Are you trying to die, girl?" Madarame yelled, his own heart hammering; he almost hadn't been able to pull the hit in time. The Captain-Commander had been emphatic about wanting the girl alive and relatively intact; they were only to use lethal force if the alternative was her escape.

Hisana saw Yumichika arrive to one side, dropping David's unconscious form near them, and her stomach twisted into a cold knot. There was no one else to help; she knew she probably couldn't take either of them in a fight even if she was fresh, much less tired and wounded.

Glancing at her aunt and David, Hisana did the only thing she could. "You said your orders were to capture me, right?" When Madarame nodded she swallowed hard and released her shikai, sheathing her zanpakuto. "Then I surrender." Seeing surprise on Madarame and Yumichika's faces, she pressed on. "Please don't kill my family. I'll come quietly."

Madarame looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. "All right."

Yumichika looked at Madarame with surprise. "Ikkaku, the Captain-Commander didn't know Kurosaki Karin was here; you know he'd want her eliminated."

Madarame shook his head with a fox-faced grin. "I guess it's too bad for the Captain-Commander that the girl was the only one here. Who would have thought that she'd be the only one to stay and fight while the others ran before we even got a look at them?" When Yumichika gave him a baffled look, he rolled his eyes. "We're not going to tell anyone differently, and I don't think the girl's going to either."

Hisana nodded, having caught on. She knelt over her aunt, and when Madarame didn't stop her, started casting healing kido on Karin's wound. "I was really surprised when they left me alone," she said in her best scared-little-girl voice.

Yumichika snorted, getting it. "He'd probably believe that. All right." Giving Hisana a penetrating look, he asked, "What state did you leave that Secret Mobile Unit squad in?"

"Out of commission, but breathing," Hisana answered, forcing as much healing reiatsu into her aunt as she could in spite of her exhaustion. "They won't be able to contradict the story."

"All right then," Madarame said. "We're leaving. Come here."

Satisfied that her aunt would survive, Hisana nodded, heart hammering, and followed the two red robes to the edge of the clearing. "Bakudo No. 63: Sajo Sabaku," Yumichika's voice came from behind Hisana. She tensed, but didn't resist as the glowing yellow chains materialized, coiling around her torso, binding her arms and immobilizing her from waist to neck. The kido chains were heavy and solid; she could tell that she'd have no hope of breaking them on her own.

"Hisana… what are you doing… run!" a weak voice came from behind her. She turned in surprise, seeing that David had regained consciousness, extending a trembling hand towards her.

"I'm sorry, David. It's me they want, and I can't let you guys die." Behind her, Hisana felt a wash of reiatsu and blue light as the senkai gate opened. "You have to help Karin. Don't let any of them follow me. They have to think of Tessai. I couldn't bear if they got hurt because of me." She saw sadness in his eyes, but also understanding.

Yumichika's hand fell on her shoulder, shepherding her forward, and she allowed herself to be led to the gate of blue light. She managed not to shake as fear churned in her stomach, but she couldn't stop a single tear from trickling down her cheek. _I wish I could have said goodbye to Mom and Dad and Tessai_, she thought regretfully as she passed through the gate with her captors. At least they wouldn't be left wondering about her fate. The link between a substitute's body and soul worked both ways; when the Gatekeeper executed her in Seireitei, her body would die back in Japan. Maybe if he believed that her father's bloodline was finally wiped out he'd leave the rest of her family alone.

New determination filled Hisana as her captors lead her into the Dangai Precipice World. She'd have to do her best to convince the Gatekeeper that she was the last of the Kurosakis before he killed her.

* * *

_Author's Note: Uh-oh! The Kurosaki girls are in trouble! Next update coming soon. Please review/share your thoughts!_


	7. A Frying Pan and a Fire

**Chapter Seven: A Frying Pan and a Fire**

_The Dangai Precipice World_

The three shinigami, one black and two red, walked single file down the center of the solid path leading through the gloom of the Dangai. Around them, the walls oozed and flowed with the koryu. Ikkaku Madarame led the way, zanpakuto resting on his shoulder. His gaze wandered, always alert for threats. Behind him walked Kurosaki Hisana, focusing on not tripping, since it would be a painful fall with her upper body bound by glowing yellow chain. The loose end of the chain was gripped in the hand of the man who brought up the rear, Ayasegawa Yumichika.

Hisana had seen images of the Dangai Precipice World that connected the world of the living to the realms of the dead, but she had never visited it before. It was quiet enough that she could hear the oozing flow of the koryu. Yumichika had told her not to get near them, an unnecessary warning. Her parents had drilled into her that touching the koryu or the kototsu "street sweeper" would result in death.

"This is really starting to irritate me," Madarame commented over his shoulder to his lieutenant. "The Captain-Commander sends us on a high priority mission and not only does his precious Kido Corps make us go through the Dangai, but the 12th Division can't even be bothered to halt the koryu."

Yumichika shrugged. "The Kido Corps doesn't care about working with us since the Captain-Commander replaced its leadership with his own men, and you know the 12th Division don't hurry for anyone."

"Of course I know that, but they're endangering a critical mission. I have half a mind to go over there and kick a few asses," Madarame fumed.

"It won't make a difference. They'll just say that they weren't given adequate warning to halt the koryu, and Captain Kurotsuchi will back them up because he doesn't like us," Yumichika replied calmly.

"And that doesn't piss you off?" Madarame growled.

"Of course it does. The lack of respect is infuriating. But stress causes wrinkles, so I'm not going to stress out over it," Yumichika answered.

Bemused by the pair's banter, Hisana tried not to think about what lay ahead for her. She knew the Gatekeeper wanted her dead, and wasn't sure why he'd ordered the pair to keep her alive. Unfortunately, the only thing Hisana could think of was that he wanted some information out of her, or just wanted to torture her before she died, as he had done to her mother. She resolved to tell him nothing if the situation was the former. If it was the latter… she shivered and went back to not thinking about it.

They had walked for a while when Hisana noticed something peculiar. Ahead and to the left, a rectangular section of the wall seemed to be infused with a golden glow that shone faintly even through the slow moving ooze of the koryu. It was the shape and size of a door, which didn't make any sense. A path through the Dangai had only a beginning and end. There weren't any side branches, and certainly not through the koryu. Still, looking at it, Hisana felt… almost drawn to it. It looked right, natural.

"What is that?" Hisana asked Yumichika.

"What is what?" he said with a slight frown.

"That thing, that golden glow, right there," Hisana said, tilting her head at it, irritated by her inability to point at the glowing part of the wall.

"That's just the koryu, girl. There's nothing glowing," Yumichika answered curtly.

Hisana stopped, turning to look at him in disbelief. "You can't see the glowing piece of wall right in front of us?" They were standing just meters from it.

Yumichika's eyes narrowed in irritation. "There's nothing different there. I don't know if this is a game or a stalling tactic, but I'm not amused either way." Passing her, he tugged on the leash, forcing her to stumble after him. "Keep walking."

Hisana trudged after him, glancing back several times until the strange glowing wall was lost from sight. _What's going on? Can he really not see that?_ Hisana thought.

_**He can't, but I can,**_ chimed a musical whisper in Hisana's mind.

_Kaze no Megami?_ Hisana thought in surprise. Her zanpakuto had never talked to her while she was awake before. _Do you know what that was?_

_**I don't. But… it looked like a door, **_the zanpakuto sang.

Hisana had gotten the same impression. She mused on it as she walked. They marched through the gloom for several more minutes before Hisana saw another golden glow ahead. This time it was on the right side of the path. _It does look like a door, but what if it is? Mom and Dad said that touching the koryu will kill me, and whatever it is, it's under the koryu._

_**Is that any worse than what's waiting for us at the end of this walk? **_Kaze no Megami hummed.

Hisana blinked. That was true. They'd been walking for a while. David would have gotten Karin to safety by now, and her parents would know what had happened. They'd run, abandoning their house. And now that they knew the Secret Mobile Unit was on their trail, they would be able to give them the slip and disappear again. She'd done what was needed to protect them. Did it matter whether she died in the Dangai or in the Gatekeeper's dungeon? _You're okay with this?_ Hisana thought.

_**The choice is yours, Hisana. I will face it with you either way, **_Kaze no Megami crooned.

Her thoughts racing, Hisana kept her outward air of quiet dejection in place. As they drew closer to the glowing wall, Hisana decided. _I'd rather be at the mercy of the Dangai than the Gatekeeper._ With that resolved, she considered the problem of the chain and leash. Yumichika would be able to pull her back if she just made a run for the wall. A solution occurred to her almost immediately, and while it was a mean thing to do to him, she was running short on time, so she went with it. As luck would have it, there was a patch of uneven ground right near the golden glow. Walking over it, Hisana let herself trip with a cry of alarm. Landing flat on her face hurt, but it had the desired effect. Yumichika came close to help her to her feet. Hisana could feel blood trickling from her nose from the impact.

"Sorry about the restraints. Are you okay?" Yumichika asked.

Hisana winced. "Yes, thank you," she said, playing up on the helpless girl thing so he'd let down his guard. Then she drove her knee into his crotch with every bit of strength and reiatsu she could muster. Kaze no Megami whistled in appreciation.

The blow had the desired effect. Yumichika's eyes bulged. His mouth fell open, but only a high pitched squeak escaped his lips as he fell to his knees. Most importantly, his end of the kido chain fell from his hand as he cradled his family jewels. Hisana glanced back at the path they had come from, wishing she wasn't hurt and tied up; otherwise she'd risk making a run for it and trying to outdistance them, but like this they would catch her.

Ahead, Madarame heard the disturbance and turned around, his expression furious when he saw what Hisana had done. But he was too far away, and even as he started towards her, Hisana pushed reiatsu into her feet and threw herself at the golden glow that she really, _really _hoped was a door and not a fatal illusion of some kind. She heard Madarame shout something. Then her body hit the gray ooze of the koryu at speed, and it engulfed her in an instant.

Cold, silent blackness surrounded Hisana, and consciousness faded.

* * *

"No!" Madarame's strangled cry echoed through the Dangai an instant before the crazy girl hit the koryu and was swallowed up by it without a ripple. "No…" he said again, guilt and sadness welling up inside him.

"Where did she go?" Yumichika asked in a strained voice, struggling to his feet. "I'll thrash that little…"

"She's dead," Madarame said numbly. "She killed herself in the koryu."

Yumichika stared at him, turning pale.

"Damn it!" Madarame yelled in frustration. He wanted to hit something, but in the Dangai he couldn't even break a knuckle against the wall.

"I'm sorry, Ikkaku" Yumichika said. "It's my fault. I should have known she would try something like that."

Madarame grimaced. "You couldn't have known she'd be that desperate, to kill herself."

"We both should have," Yumichika said evenly. "Why shouldn't she have been that desperate? She must have known what was waiting for her, what she was walking into in Seireitei." He ran his fingers through his hair, sighing. "I could see the terror in her when she surrendered. It took a lot of courage to do that. She wanted to save those two, and by now they're long gone."

"Is this what we've become Yumichika?" Madarame asked raggedly. "Kidnappers? Thugs working for a monster so terrifying that a kid would kill herself to escape?" Madarame looked at the crimson shinigami uniform he wore with the most profound expression of loathing Yumichika had ever seen on his face.

"We don't have a choice, Ikkaku," Yumichika replied grimly. "The Gatekeeper is the King's right hand, and the King of Seireitei's rule is absolute. Opposing him would destroy us. You know that."

Madarame nodded. "I do. But something has to change. The King's madness is getting worse; it's obvious. Old Man Yamamoto kept things stable between the Royal Court and the Gotei 13 for a long time, but now he's gone, and there's no one left to keep the King or the Gatekeeper in check."

Yumichika shrugged uneasily. "I wish things would change, but I don't see how. Let's head back and see what we can salvage of this mess."

Subdued, the pair made their way to the end of the path and into Seireitei.

* * *

_The Living World_

"We're safe for the moment, so tell me what happened. I want to know everything." Urahara Kisuke's voice was ice cold, heavy with rage and grief. Sitting across a small, round wooden table from him, David Crane knew that some of that anger was directed at him and accepted it. They were in a small, windowless room with gray concrete walls, lit by a humming florescent overhead light. The room had few furnishings, just a kitchenette in the corner, some metal cabinets, the table they sat at, and a trap door in the floor in the corner. The door in front of them was the exit while the door behind them lead to a room with a few beds where Rukia, Tessai and the mod soul piloting Hisana's body rested. The apartment was one of Kisuke's safe houses; this one was in Okinawa, buried underground on the edge of the American Marine base.

His voice sounding leaden even to his own ears, David talked, recounting the fight with the 11th Division captain and lieutenant, and Hisana's sacrifice, surrendering to save Karin's life. His mind wasn't really on the story but on the occupant of the cot against one wall that he kept glancing at. Karin lay motionless, back in her body now and deep in a coma; hovering between life and death as her soul decided whether to pass on or recover and return. Hisana had kept her from dying, but the grievous wound from Madarame's bankai was spiritual, not physical, and healing techniques couldn't do any more for her now. Knowing that his wife could die at any moment and he couldn't do anything about it make it difficult for David to focus on anything but her.

The last twelve hours were a blur. David had recovered enough strength to get Karin, her body and Hisana's body into Kisuke's van and leave the house behind. Then it had been a matter of rendezvousing with Kisuke, Rukia and Tessai, and running. They made their way to a secluded airfield, where Kisuke chartered a plane that took them to Okinawa and the safe house. They'd gotten Karin into her body.

David and Kisuke had been forced to physically restrain Rukia from going off to find the nearest red robe and force them to open a senkai gate for her. Eventually she'd just cried herself to sleep holding Tessai, who was a confused, worried and irritated little boy. He'd probably be more upset when they had to explain to him that he couldn't go home or see any of his friends again, and that his sister was gone. He was already suspicious of Melfina's attempts to imitate Hisana.

"So you failed," Kisuke concluded coldly when the story was done.

David felt his own anger rise, and leaned forward, glaring at the former captain. "If my wife lives through the night, you can take up her 'failure' to defeat a Gotei 13 captain with her. As for my defeat, I was working off of bad intelligence, and that's on you, Kisuke. Your file on Ayasegawa Yumichika said that he was a decent duelist with a melee-type zanpakuto of middling strength and no bankai. He has the most dangerous kido-type zanpakuto I've encountered in my life, and I've killed shinigami stronger than him."

"I'm sorry," Kisuke admitted. "You don't deserve that, and you're right about Yumichika. He's never fit the profile of an 11th Division officer. If one of them was hiding a kido-type zanpakuto, it would be him. I wonder how many of his victories against the arrancar and Vandenreich can be attributed to that trump card."

"Theory later," David said, rising to his feet experimentally, satisfied that all of his strength had returned. "Karin told me once that you could open a Reishi Hekan-Ki; a senkai gate for those with physical bodies. Do you have that equipment here?"

"I have the parts," Kisuke said cautiously. "I could put one together. Why?"

"Because I'm sorry, too," the American said evenly. "I did fail, and Hisana paid for it. Every moment counts now, so assemble that gate and I'll go get her before they execute her."

"Alone? That's suicide," Kisuke told him.

David shook his head. "I'm not going to pick a fight, Kisuke. I'm going to find and extract her. It won't be the first time I've stolen a prisoner from shinigami."

"They're not stupid, David," Kisuke said impatiently. "They'll throw her in the Shrine of Penitence if they don't execute her immediately, and even Yoruichi couldn't get in and out of there without being seen."

"I know some tricks that no shinigami has seen," David answered seriously. "Even if I didn't, I have to go. My pride as a Quincy demands it. If I do nothing and Hisana dies, the shame would follow me to my grave."

"What about Karin?" Kisuke asked quietly.

"I can't do anything more for her now. She'll pull through. Karin's too stubborn to die," he said with a smile. Picking up a pad of paper from the table, he quickly wrote down a short list and handed it to Kisuke. "Also, if you have any of those ready to go in your stash, they'd be useful."

Kisuke read the list and nodded. "Well, I'm not going to argue, then. I hope you can pull this off. I only wish I had the strength to go with you and be a help rather than a liability," Kisuke said as he levered himself up to his feet and walked over to the trap door in the corner, opening it and climbing down the ladder. "Make whatever preparations you need to and come down in an hour," he said to David before he disappeared from sight.

One hour later David dropped down the ladder shaft into the lower chamber, landing easily with a pulse of reiatsu to soften his landing. On the other side of the large, brightly lit room littered with crates, boxes and tools, Kisuke looked up from the large, empty frame of mottled white stone he had just finished assembling.

The Quincy was dressed in an outfit reminiscent of an American military uniform, but the fatigue jacket and pants were shades of blue and white. He wore a blue beret with a sapphire-studded silver cross on the front and dark blue combat boots. He had a satchel slung over his shoulder, and a quintet of Seele Schneider hung on his belt. Hand him a rifle and he'd fit right in with the Marines in the base above their heads. On a table by the ladder were a few cloth bags. David picked them up, examined the contents, and added them to his satchel.

Kisuke raised an eyebrow at his outfit. "Subtle. You're going to sneak into the heart of Seireitei dressed like that?"

David grinned and nodded. "Is it ready?" he asked, approaching the square stone frame.

"It is," Kisuke answered, pressing a hand to the side and pouring some reiatsu into it. The hollow area in the middle filled with a gray-edged white disc of light.

David stepped up and examined it. "Impressive." Pausing in front of the portal, he fished something out of his satchel. Kisuke glanced at it, seeing the Quincy palm a metallic disk with a flat back and a large smooth-cut blue crystal embedded in the front. As he watched, the Quincy poured a significant amount of reiatsu into the gem. When he stopped, it glowed faintly. He slapped it onto the frame of the gate and it stuck there.

"What's that for?" Kisuke asked curiously.

"Insurance. Don't touch it."

"Insurance against what, may I ask?"

"Making sure neither of our wives can coerce you into opening this gate for them. I'll locate another way back once I've found Hisana. When I reach the other side and the gate closes, you have ten seconds to get out of this room." Before Kisuke could reply, David stepped through the shimmering white portal and was gone.

"Aya…" Kisuke exclaimed, realizing that David had left him standing next to a bomb. "He does know that shunpo is really hard when you're in a gigai, right?" The former captain asked no one in particular as he continued to feed reiatsu into the gate to keep it open and tried to ignore the blue light next to his head.

* * *

_The Rukongai_

Emerging on the far side of the gate, David felt it snap shut on his heels as he dropped a few meters to the ground on the forested hill where the portal had deposited him. Looking around, he climbed to the top of the hill to get his bearings. When he reached the crest he found himself looking at more woodland in his immediate surroundings, and beyond that the low buildings of the Rukongai. Far in the distance were the walls of Seireitei.

If he'd had to walk, it would take more than a day to reach the walls, but once he was properly concealed he could make the trip in an hour. He was already suppressing his reiatsu, and as he stood on the hilltop he concentrated on another technique, once he couldn't show Urahara Kisuke or any shinigami - not even his own wife.

Closing his eyes, David focused on the small and incredibly fast reishi that made up the light around him. He pushed countless delicate tendrils of his own reiatsu out to meet them and bend them around his body. When the technique was done he opened his eyes, and smiled when absolute blackness greeted him.

The Quincy Licht Beugen _[Bend Light]_ technique was one the shinigami still knew nothing about. It was developed by the Western Families after the diaspora from Japan, and the Vandenreich had disdained its use. They weren't subtle or patient enough to make themselves invisible. The technique also blinded its user for the duration, but in Seireitei where everything was made of reishi, a skilled Quincy could navigate with his reiatsu sense alone. Western Quincy had been using it to spy on Seireitei for decades without notice.

Now effectively invisible to both spiritual and mundane senses, David took to the air, Hirenkyaku accelerating him towards the walls of Seireitei at a breakneck pace. "Hang on Hisana, I'm coming."

* * *

_The Living World_

Kisuke shot up out of the top of the ladder shaft a split second ahead of a muffled "boom" and a plume of dust. Coughing, he quickly closed the trap door to seal the smoke and heat from David's reiatsu bomb in the chamber below. He was a bit irritated by the loss of stock and equipment, but the Quincy had been right. Rukia and Karin would both want to follow him once they woke up. Now they couldn't. Of course, he had other gates in different safe houses, but the women didn't know that, and he wasn't going to tell them.

Kisuke ached to help Hisana himself, and he was sorely tempted to make the trip to Seireitei himself even if he was too weak to make a difference without Benihime. But Hisana's parting words to David hit home. She was a smart, brave kid, and she was right: he did have a responsibility to Tessai, and he couldn't die carelessly.

Nor could Kisuke casually allow Rukia and Karin to throw their lives away invading Seireitei. Rukia's reiatsu and skill were undiminished, but the maimed gigai that imprisoned her soul made her dangerously vulnerable in a serious fight with a lieutenant or captain, and it would be weeks at a minimum before Karin was sufficiently recovered from her injuries to face combat again, assuming she even survived the next 24 hours. No, Kisuke concluded glumly that all he could do at present was hope that David was as good as he thought he was.

Kisuke's thoughts were interrupted by Rukia's scream from the next room. "Hisana, no! No, not my baby!" Kisuke ran to the door and opened it. Rukia sat on the edge of the bed their daughter's body and mod soul had been sleeping in, cradling Hisana's unmoving form to her chest.

Tessai was sitting on the other bed, looking between his mother and sister, confused and scared. "Mom, what's wrong? Is Hisana okay? Mom!"

As Kisuke moved to Hisana's bedside, he saw Rukia slip the green mod soul pill between Hisana's lips. A moment later, it popped back out. Rukia tried it again, with the same result. Her shoulders shook with terrified sobs, and Kisuke felt an icy dagger of fear plunge into his heart. A substitute shinigami's vacant body would only reject a soul pill if the true soul was dead, dying, or otherwise losing its connection to the physical form that anchored it. Praying it was the "other" option, and not his stepdaughter being murdered by the red robes, Kisuke pulled Hisana free of Rukia's grasp and laid her out on the bed, checking her vitals. As he'd feared, she wasn't breathing, and her heartbeat had stopped. Kisuke started performing CPR on her. If she was dead it was a lost cause, but he had to try anyway.

"How long since she rejected the pill?" Kisuke asked during chest compressions.

"It's been less than a minute," Rukia answered. "I woke up when the room shook When I went to check on her, she started convulsing. The pill fell out of her mouth and she stopped breathing."

"Mom! Dad! What's going on?" Tessai asked, voice trembling. From the corner of his eye he could see his son was crying, but he didn't have the time to comfort him. Finishing chest compressions, he tilted Hisana's head back and started breathing air into her lungs.

"Healing kido, now," Kisuke instructed his wife when he returned to compressions. "Focus on the head and torso. It lengthens the amount of time before cells start to degrade from lack of oxygen." Nodding, Rukia climbed up on the other side of the bed, extending her hand. A greenish glow poured from her fingers, surrounding Hisana's upper body.

Tessai's babbled questions cut off abruptly, and Kisuke realized his son was staring at Rukia with wide eyes. "What's that green stuff?"

At any other time discovering that his son had become spiritually aware enough to see kido being cast would be a jarring event, but it was a discovery and a talk with his son that would have to wait until after he'd done what he could to save his stepdaughter. Kisuke halted the compressions for just a moment to extend a hand towards his son and send a gentle pulse of reiatsu into the boy's mind. Tessai fall back onto the bed, deep asleep. Kisuke returned to the CPR.

A minute later, Hisana's body trembled slightly, and started breathing again with a ragged gasp. Her pulse raced at first, then gradually calmed. Rukia looked up, hope returning to her face. "Is she okay?"

Kisuke gave his wife a serious look. "She's not dead, but something caused her soul to lose its connection to her body." Experimentally, he tried feeding her the mod soul again, but it popped out once more. "Whatever that was, it's lingering."

"What's happening to her?"

Kisuke shook his head. "I can only guess. Either distance is interfering with her connection to her body…" he trailed off, hesitant to say it.

"Or the red robes are killing my baby, and the next time she stops breathing she won't come back," Rukia finished flatly. "Kisuke, we have to go help her!"

"David's already on his way. I sent him through the Reishi Hekan-Ki while you were sleeping."

Rukia looked at him in angry disbelief. "You had a gate to Seireitei here and you didn't tell me? Why? I should be there with him!"

"The same reason I didn't go myself. Neither of us could make a difference in a fight with a captain, and we both have responsibilities to Tessai as well as Hisana. He saw your kido, Rukia. He's becoming spiritually aware. If we get killed by the red robes, who will protect him?"

"Then you stay and I'll go. I can't sit here doing nothing and watch my daughter die!"

Kisuke shook his head. "I can't reopen the gate, even if I wanted to. David knows you and Karin too well. He blew up the gate once he was through." Gently he drew his wife into his arms. Still angry, she tried to push him away at first, then collapsed against his chest, sobbing. "Hisana's strong, and David was confident that he could find her. How many times did her father beat impossible odds and survive when everyone thought he would die?"

"But the Gatekeeper got him in the end," Rukia reminded him in a subdued tone.

Kisuke didn't have an answer for that, so he just held his wife and watched his daughter's body breathe. For now, at least, she was alive. _Hurry, David. Please hurry._

Disentangling himself from his wife after a few minutes, Kisuke went to go find the supplies necessary to set up IV drips for Karin and Hisana; he wasn't sure when or if either of them would be ambulatory again. At least those supplies had been stored in the rooms above and hadn't been blown up with the gate.

* * *

_Seireitei_

The tension at the Captain's Meeting in the public chambers of the Captain-Commander, deep within the 1st Division barracks, was palpable. The Gatekeeper crumpled the piece of paper in his hand into a ball and threw it at the ground. "Explain this to me," he said calmly, addressing the bald captain of the 11th Division, who looked back at him with an expressionless face. "Explain how the two strongest members of the Division reputed to be masters of combat failed to subdue and return with **one. little. girl.**" The last words were delivered through clenched teeth.

"That would be rather embarrassing to explain, if it were the case," Madarame answered neutrally. "As I noted in my report," he continued, glancing as the crumpled ball of paper on the floor, "we secured the target and would have returned successfully if the 12th Division had done their job. The flow of the koryu was not halted as requested, and the prisoner chose to commit suicide by throwing herself into it." As Madarame delivered those words, there was a stir of disquiet among the assembled lieutenants, and even a few captains. Madarame had been dispatched alone in the middle of the night on his mission, but by now word had spread about who he had been sent to "collect", and the outcome plainly didn't sit well with a number of the people in the room.

"Oh, shut up," the Gatekeeper said with a look of disgust, raising his reiatsu until the lieutenants fell to their knees, and even the captains could feel the pressure. Then he reined it in, and glared at Captain Kurotsuchi. "Explain."

Mayuri was dressed with a purple mantle on his shoulders, a gold frame around his face and a blue headdress, his face painted in vertical stripes. He bristled, glaring at Madarame before addressing the question. "It takes a significant commitment of manpower to halt the koryu, manpower that cannot quickly be brought to bear without damaging other projects, _significant_ projects. My Division has never failed to halt the koryu on occasions where they were given proper notice!"

"Bullshit," Madarame spat. "You didn't halt the flow on our way out, and that's fine; we can handle it. But I checked on the time distortion between when we departed and when we opened the senkai gate for the return trip. It was more than six hours. Not only were we denied hell butterflies to get us back directly, but the koryu still wasn't halted, and because of that the prisoner was able to kill herself."

"That's enough," the Gatekeeper interrupted. "You still failed." He raised a hand to forestall Madarame's retort. "If the girl had escaped I would be seriously upset. Her death, however, was within acceptable mission parameters, if not optimal ones. Fail me again, though, and there will be consequences." With that the Captain-Commander's burning gaze turned to Captain Soifon. "I believe your team has been retrieved from the world of the living. Does their report have anything to add?"

Soifon shook her head, clearly unhappy. "No, Captain-Commander. They were overcome by the target, and they are being disciplined for that failure. The squad's leader had nothing significant to add to Captain Ikkaku's report beyond confirmation of the identities of the shinigami and Quincy who fled: Kurosaki Karin and an American named David Crane, respectively."

The Gatekeeper's eyes narrowed at the mention of Karin's name. "Understood. Captain Soifon, send more of your people to the living world. I want Kurosaki Karin found. The rest of the rebels in black can be hunted down at our leisure." Soifon nodded in silent assent.

"Captain Kurotsuchi," the Gatekeeper said to the 12th Division head. "I understand that the demands on your Division are many, and I appreciate the hard work you and your subordinates do." Mayuri inclined his head. "That said, the next time I order shinigami to enter the Dangai Precipice World on a mission, the koryu _will_ be halted. I don't care how little warning you get. You or your lieutenant will do it personally if that's what it takes. Am I understood?" Mayuri's lips thinned in irritation, but he nodded. "Good. You're all dismissed."

Madarame was one of the last out the door. Yumichika headed off to a lieutenant's meeting while Madarame headed back to his office to deal with some paperwork. He passed through a few empty halls before sensing someone waiting for him ahead.

"Captain Ikkaku," Hirako Shinji, captain of the 5th Division and leader of the Visored said as Madarame turned the corner, leaning against the wall.

"Captain Hirako," he replied. "What can I do for you?"

"What really happened?" he asked. "The Captain-Commander may despise the Kurosakis enough to believe you, but I don't. Karin didn't run from you; there's never been a member of that family who would recognize a healthy sense of self-preservation if it bit them on the ass," Shinji observed in his usual sardonic tone.

"I've filed my report, Captain Hirako," Madarame said irritably. "If you want to know what's in it, I'll send a copy to your Division."

"I know what's in it," Shinji shot back, "and I know it's a load of crap."

"I'm done with this conversation," Madarame said, storming past him.

"Is Ichigo's daughter really dead?" Shinji asked sadly.

Madarame stopped, looking back at her. Shinji was taken aback by the raw pain on his face. "Her name was Hisana, and she really did kill herself, Shinji. I watched it. She knew enough about this hell we live in to choose a quick death in the Dangai over a slow one here." Fury growing on his face, Madarame stepped closer, his face close to Shinji's. "The worst part is, if she hadn't done it I would have brought her here and handed the daughter of one of my closest friends over to the sadistic animal who rules our lives. He's turning us into monsters just like him, and we're so focused on protecting our subordinates that we don't even see it. I've done things today that I would have died before doing twenty years ago, and if he ordered me to do it again tomorrow I would have to because he holds all of our lives in his hands," Madarame answered, his voice raw. Shinji watched, eyes wide with surprise, as he reined in his anger and self-loathing, putting his expressionless mask back on. "Does that answer your question?" With that Madarame turned and left.

"All too well, friend," Shinji murmured. "All too well."

* * *

"Ow…" Hisana hurt all over, but at least she could hear her own voice now, and her labored breathing. That was an improvement.

It felt like an eternity that Hisana had drifted in the perfect, silent, cold blackness of the koryu. Time had lost meaning. She wasn't even sure if she'd really been conscious for the whole thing. She'd passed out at first, but then woken back up in that same void. There was no light or sound there. She had tried to scream, but couldn't tell if she was successful. She couldn't move her body, but she could feel the cold. It was endless, chilling her flesh and seeping into her bones. She had never been so cold in her life and it had felt like it would never end, right up until it had ended, and she fell.

Now Hisana's skin was still chilled, but she could feel solid ground beneath her, and it was warm; or at least warmer than she was. She just lay there for a time, breath ragged as waves of pins and needles washed over her with maddening intensity. When the pain faded slightly, she tried opening her eyes. At first she hadn't been able to see anything at all, but now she could see blurs; blobs of light and dark.

When Hisana's muscles would obey her she sat up, wincing at the new pain movement brought from her broken rib and unhealed cuts and bruises from her fight with the Secret Mobile Unit. She patted her sash, reassuring herself that at least Kaze no Megami was still with her.

Waiting for her vision to clear, Hisana touched the ground she sat on. It was sand, loose and fine grained. _Where am I?_

Hisana sat still, and gradually her vision cleared enough to see. She was sitting in a shallow depression amidst more than a dozen short trees, all slender and bare of leaves, their branches clawing at the black sky and scattered, dark gray clouds like skeletal fingers. Leaning against the nearest tree, Hisana got to her feet. The bark felt odd enough that she looked at it closely, squinting. It didn't flex like wood, even when she pushed against it, and its surface felt more like stone than bark.

Shrugging off the oddity, Hisana slowly climbed the nearest sand dune on unsteady legs, wanting to see what lay beyond the spot where she had fallen. When she crested the dune she found herself looking out over a vast expanse of nighttime desert that continued on to the horizon, the monotony of dunes broken only by a few other bare trees like the ones below her. The landscape was brightly lit by the moon behind her, which cast a silvery light over the sands.

_The moon…_ Hisana frowned as she turned around. The moon above her was strangely close and bright, but that wasn't what bothered her. The night before Madarame and Yumichika's arrival had been pitch black because it was a new moon. Now the moon was almost completely full. _How long was I in the koryu?_ Hisana thought. Then she gazed out at the horizon in the other direction, and her heart jumped into her throat. "Oh," she said weakly. "Oh, fuck me…" she swore with feeling. It was kilometers away, but silhouetted against the horizon was a vast building of white stone that dwarfed any structure on earth. She'd seen pictures of it before in Kisuke's training room. Years ago her father had almost died on its towering roof.

Hisana looked out over the landscape of Hueco Mundo at the distant palace of Las Noches, horror and dismay bubbling up inside her. Nearby a chilling howl rose above the sound of the wind, a fitting counterpoint to her painful realization. "I am in so much trouble."

More Hollow cries filled the air, as if in agreement.

* * *

_Author's Note: Out of the frying pan, into the fire! Next update soon._

_For you regular readers, I've added a short foreword to Chapter 1 as of 7/19/2012._


	8. Trials

**Chapter Eight: Trials**

_Seireitei_

Deep inside the 12th Division Barracks a tall man with short, spiky brown hair stood before a panel of flickering computer monitors. His eyes were focused on the screens as he took in multiple streams of fast-moving data without difficulty. The light of the monitors lit his pale face. A trio of horns jutted from his forehead, remnants of past experimentation on his body.

When a single delicate finger ran down the back of his neck, he jumped in surprise. In the unbroken quiet of the room he had heard no one approach, nor had the door opened. Turning around, he blinked when he saw no one. Then the light from the monitors faded slightly, and he saw a slender shadow projected onto the far wall by their light.

Akon, 3rd Seat of the 12th Division, sighed and turned to the room's other inhabitant. Sitting on top of his console with her feet swinging idly over the edge was a skinny, coltish girl with orange hair cut as short and unruly as his own, dressed simply in white clothes.

"Chinatsu, how many times have I asked you to knock and come in like a normal visitor?" Akon asked with exasperation, though he couldn't keep a note of fondness from his voice. The Captain-Commander's daughter was allowed free run of virtually every area of Seireitei including the Division barracks, but for some reason Akon and a few other shinigami had been profiled by the coltish girl years ago as "funny when startled". She'd been sneaking up on him since she was seven, and she only got better at it with age.

"Umm… twenty-two? No, I guess it must be twenty-three now, since you kind of just asked again." Chinatsu gave him a cheeky grin that should have looked out of place on her delicate face, but didn't. Akon didn't know many girls Chinatsu's age who would be smiling with a black eye and a nasty bruise around her left temple, but Chinatsu was far from normal. Few shinigami liked the Captain-Commander, but most disliked him for the people he had killed or the heavy-handedness with which he ruled the Gotei 13. The latter was certainly Captain Kurotsuchi's chief complaint.

Akon, and the few other shinigami around whom Chinatsu let down her guard, hated the Gatekeeper for a far more personal reason: they hated him for the way he mistreated his daughter. Akon marveled that Chinatsu could smile at all after everything she'd been through. He suspected she had inherited her mother's unusual strength of spirit. "What can I do for you this evening, my dear?" Akon asked with a faint smile. She usually came to him for the same thing when she visited, but ever since he'd observed years ago that her father never asked her anything but just threw orders at her, he'd made the effort to talk to Chinatsu rather than at her.

Chinatsu patted the short-bladed zanpakuto tied to her sash. Akon avoided looking directly at it; he knew enough about that blade to be wary. He knew without looking that its wooden scabbard, metal blade and leather-wrapped hilt were all plain, utilitarian and colored a matte black that seemed to swallow the light. It was always a stark contrast with the white clothes that Chinatsu wore.

"My partner's hungry," Chinatsu said lightly. "Do you know where I can go to find him some dinner?"

Akon nodded mechanically, pulling up monitoring reports from the living world to distract himself and keep his anger off of his face and out of his reiatsu. Chinatsu would sense either, and think it was directed at her, rather than her monster of a father. Most shinigami didn't know how Chinatsu had gotten her zanpakuto, but Akon had found the truth in Captain Kurotsuchi's notes years ago, and even if he'd known nothing else about the abuse the Gatekeeper had heaped upon Chinatsu since she was a toddler, knowing that Captain-Commander had bonded _that_ zanpakuto to the soul of his own daughter when she was four years old would have been enough to make Akon hate the man. The saddest part was, Chinatsu didn't even understand how twisted what had been done to her was. She had never known life without that zanpakuto.

One report in particular from news feeds in the living world that the 12th Division tapped into caught Akon's eye. "I think you'll have luck finding what you're looking for here," Akon said, pulling up a map of the living world, which zoomed in from a world view down to a continent and then a region within the continent. Pulling up the coordinates of the nearest senkai gate in the area, Akon raised one open hand and absently formed a hell butterfly, sending it wafting on its way. "The Kido Corps should have the main gate ready by the time you get there." The Kido Corps didn't move for many people, especially this late at night, but for one of Chinatsu's excursions, they'd have it ready for her. Her father authorized her expeditions, and he was the only person the Kido Corps reacted quickly for anymore.

"Thank you, Akon!" Chinatsu said brightly, hugging Akon and kissing him lightly on the cheek. "See you later!"

"Why don't you use the door this ti- never mind," Akon said as she scampered up into the ceiling duct she'd used to sneak into the room and was gone. Shaking his head, he got back to his work. "I hope I'm there to see it when someone kills him," Akon murmured under his breath, thinking of the Captain-Commander.

* * *

_The Living World, Southern Sudan_

The senkai gate deposited Chinatsu on a wide plain. Flat, sparsely forested grassland extended in every direction. It was nighttime, and dark. The moon was barely a sliver, and only stars provided light.

Chinatsu focused, and a faint glow of yellow light surrounded her body. Turning her power inward, she altered the alignment of the particles making up her body. Reishi flipped over and became kishi, transforming her from a spiritual being into a full, physical human teenage girl. The ability to shift from spirit to flesh at will had been hers as long as she'd been alive, and she had never thought much of it. She was just glad she never had to mess around with soul pills or gigai.

Chinatsu turned in a slow circle, getting her bearings. There were no strong sources of reiatsu other than her own nearby, but as she turned around; she spotted yellow and orange flames climbing towards the sky. She set off at a run, pushing reiatsu into her feet to speed her progress, her zanpakuto's spirit egging her on. The sword didn't want their prey to get away, and Chinatsu wasn't eager to have to deal with her zanpakuto's irritation if dinner was not forthcoming.

As Chinatsu got closer, she could see that the flames were actually burning buildings. The primitive houses were made of grass and mud brick, and with the land around them dry and parched in the warm season before the rains, the structures burned like torches. Chinatsu also heard loud pops of gunfire echo across the plain, and frowned. Akon had steered her right, as usual.

Slowing down when she reached the village outskirts, Chinatsu stuck to the shadows, avoiding the light of the fires and circling around, looking for the people who had to be here. She spotted bodies, mostly men, scattered here and there. She guessed them to be villagers rather than whoever was attacking. As she drew nearer to the village's far edge, she saw a much larger building with sturdier walls and a solid roof by the edge of a dry, winding streambed that looked to only bear water when the rains came. She crept into the shallow streambed just moment before the thunder of hoof beats approached. Several men on horseback rode by as Chinatsu hid in the shadows. They wore dark flowing clothes and checkered scarves to hide their faces. They all carried rifles, some bolt-action, others battered AK-47s. They carried torches that blinded them to the night, and shouted to each other harshly in a language Chinatsu did not understand.

Once they were past, Chinatsu followed them to the foot of the large building. All of the village paths lead to it, and Chinatsu assumed it was some sort of communal gathering place. She could hear a number of voices from inside. They seemed to be mostly women and children, and frightened.

Seeing the one large door of the building shut, Chinatsu wondered if they were under attack, but then she saw that the bars and chains were on the outside of the door, and realized the attack was already over. Her eyes narrowed in disgust as she understood what was about to happen. The horsemen she'd followed had joined a larger group, making perhaps two dozen in all, all similarly garbed and armed.

Two of the horsemen dismounted, and took sloshing plastic containers full of liquid from their saddlebags. Approaching the walls of the building, they began pouring the stuff on and around the structure, laughing at the pleas from the people trapped inside. The wind brought the harsh scent of gasoline to Chinatsu's nose. Most shinigami wouldn't have recognized it, but Chinatsu had spent plenty of time in the living world and in the flesh, and she understood what the stuff was. It was used to power machines, and to set fires.

It was the latter that this merry band of butchers was using it for. When they were done, the pair of dousers retreated, and other horsemen threw their torches into the wet patches. Immediately flames roared to life, racing up the sides of the building. The pleas from the people inside turned to screams.

Chinatsu's zanpakuto hummed with hunger and anticipation, and her anger rose to match it. "Humans are disgusting," Chinatsu murmured to herself. "They have this whole beautiful world and all they do is ravage it and each other." Stepping from the shadows, she gathered her reiatsu. "Hado No. 38: Kazehiya!" _[Cold Wind]_

A swirling blast of frigid air laden with snow and ice exploded from Chinatsu's outstretched hands. Concentrated on a single target the kido could freeze an opponent solid, but Chinatsu let it take a wider path, washing over the burning building. The flames guttered and died down, the building trembling from the force of the arctic gust. Chinatsu turned as the kido tapered off, letting the tail end of it wash over the horsemen. Most of their torches flickered out.

The attackers were shouting now, confused but also upset. A few of them pointed at Chinatsu, and she saw gun barrels being pointed in her direction. They may not understand what had just happened, but they understood a stranger on foot, and their instinct was violence. Allowing herself a sniff of disdain, Chinatsu slipped into a shunpo and vanished as bullets tore through the spot she had been standing. Her zanpakuto was almost vibrating from eagerness as she drew it from its sheath and leapt up to meet its first meal.

The mounted gunman never even saw Chinatsu coming, night-blind and without his torch. Her blade bit deep into his neck, and he was already dying when she snatched his AK-47 from his grasp and disappeared back into the shadows. She used the rifle to spray a few more horsemen with bullets, dropping the gun and vanishing with another burst of speed as their compatriots returned fire. She cut down a few more of them from the shadows, and saw the rest start to panic. They wheeled their horses, a number of them moving close together, back to back for protection. _Big mistake,_ Chinatsu thought, flashing up onto the roof of the building they'd tried to burn. "Hado No. 33: Sokatsui!" she yelled, sending a wide blast of searing blue fire tearing into the thickest knot of horsemen. Mounts and riders alike burst into flame, scattering in all directions. Chinatsu decided it was a fitting end for the band of arsonists, and her zanpakuto's agreement hummed in her mind.

The few gunmen left saw her and returned fire. Chinatsu dodged most of the shots, but a few hit her in the chest and legs, making her grunt in discomfort before flashing away. Rifle bullets weren't really dangerous to her even in physical form; her reiatsu-enforced body was far more durable than that of an ordinary human, but she'd still have some bruises where they hit her.

The last few horsemen turned their mounts and tried to run. Chinatsu chased them down on foot, cutting them all down before they even managed to escape the village. With the last spray of blood as her black blade decapitated the last horseman, quiet descended on the ravaged village, broken only by the crackle of flames and the occasional whinny of a frightened horse. Chinatsu made her way back to the meeting hall, where most of the blood-soaked or charred corpses had fallen. Her zanpakuto vibrated in anticipation, almost jumping out of her hand. Reaching the center of the wide square in front of the large building, she nodded in agreement and plunged the short blade halfway into the ground, releasing her grip on the weapon's hilt and backing away from it.

A pulse of reiatsu rippled through the air, spreading through the village. All around Chinatsu the bodies of the fallen began twitching and stirring. The blood pooled around them rippled, and then began flowing in straight lines towards the zanpakuto rooted in the ground. The bodies too began moving, sliding and rolling across the ground towards the sword. When the flowing blood reached it, ebony gouts of energy swirled around the zanpakuto as it absorbed the blood. The bodies that were dragged to the blade sank into it as well, vanishing without a trace. As more blood and bodies tumbled into the sword, the swirling tempest of black reiatsu drew stronger. The vortex's pull on the dead didn't stop until it had absorbed every rider and drop of blood, and the whirlwind around it howled with malice and power.

Chinatsu advanced on the buried blade, and the vortex bent around her, shrinking back into the zanpakuto and becoming more contained. By the time she got close to the blade the swirling torrent had shrunken to a sphere of pure blackness that surrounded the weapon. She reached into it, and with a pop, all of the energy was drawn into the sword. Chinatsu wrapped her hand around the zanpakuto's hilt and lifted it from the ground. "There you go; plenty of sinners to eat in a place like this. Feel better?" Chinatsu could feel the weapons wordless contentment, and the ache that had been growing in her soul for days vanished. The blade was part of her, and when it was hungry, she wasn't spared its discomfort.

Making her way over to the door of the meeting house, Chinatsu sliced through the chains and boards sealing the door with a single swipe, then willed herself back into spirit form. Her transformation reversed itself, kishi returning to reishi. She was gone from mortal sight by the time the building's doors swung open. The people inside seemed almost too afraid to leave at first, but then they came pouring out, women children and the elderly looking around in shock. Chinatsu watched as they fanned out through the smoldering wreckage of their village, sad for their homes and grieving for their loved ones, whose bodies remained where they had fallen. Chinatsu's zanpakuto only ate sinners, and only those who fell by her hand.

The people were alive at least, and would have a chance to survive and rebuild. Chinatsu couldn't do any more for them; her place was by her father's side. Sheathing her zanpakuto, she made her way back to the waiting senkai gate.

* * *

_Hueco Mundo_

Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck's hazel eyes snapped open, and she saw up in bed. "Pesche!"

With a burst of static, the Fraccion entered the room, kneeling. "Milady?"

Nel climbed out of bed, opening her closet and donning the white uniform of the Espada. "Something's coming. I can feel it. Find Gantenbainne and tell him to follow me." The busty Espada brushed back her long green hair, making her way out onto the balcony outside her bedroom at the top of the simple white tower that was her home. She glanced at the other three towers along with hers that formed corners of a square rising out of the sands of Hueco Mundo. Between then was a wide, paved area of white stone. Then Nel's gaze turned south, out into the desert. There was something out there. Something that felt new and familiar at the same time. Buckling on her zanpakuto, she hopped up onto the ledge.

"The Nuevo Espada have been testing our borders recently," Pesche said quietly. The tall man had a ridge of bone running back along his head on the left side where his straight blond hair parted, still cracked and healing from his wounding at Nnoitra's hands decades ago. "Whatever's out there, you shouldn't go alone, Nel."

The hazel-eyed woman with a ram skull mask on top of her head smiled over her shoulder. "Then go get Gantenbainne so I won't be alone. I'll be fine, Pesche." Then she vanished toward the south in a buzz of static.

* * *

Kaze no Megami screamed, and the pressure wave hit half a dozen Hollow, shredding them into drifting motes of corrupted reishi. The Hollow surrounding Hisana attacked from other directions, and as she had before Hisana fled in the direction she had just cleared to give herself some breathing room before rounding on the rest of the Hollows attacking her, slicing through a mask, batting away a spiked tail, blocking a clawed strike with her shikai and feeling Kaze no Megami's hair absorb more energy, starting to charge up for another scream. But even as she thinned out the herd around her a bit she could see more Hollow clawing their way up out of the sand to replace the fallen, and she resisted the urge to cry from pure frustration.

The Hollow had barely given Hisana a chance to get on her feet before attacking. Individually they weren't a threat; these were weak, common Hollow, but they attacked in waves and there seemed to be no end to them. While she was faster and stronger than them, Hisana had quickly discovered that there was no escaping the endless desert and there seemed to be limitless numbers of Hollow under the sands. Their endless attacks gave her plenty of ammunition for Kaze no Megami's screams, but every time she used a sound blast to thin out the herd the noise just attracted even more Hollow!

That had been her sixth scream since the fight started and Hisana knew she couldn't keep going much longer. The entire left side of her body was on fire and each movement aggravated the pain of her broken rib. Worse, her arms and legs were growing heavy and she knew she was approaching a dangerous level of exhaustion. If she slowed down eventually one of the Hollow would get in a lucky hit and they'd swarm over her. She'd already sustained a few minor injuries, added to the unhealed wounds from her fight with the Secret Mobile Unit.

Breaking away from the mob of Hollow, Hisana moved towards Las Noches as far as she could before more Hollow loomed up ahead of her and she had to stop and fight again. With all directions equally unappealing she'd decided to head for Aizen's old seat of power. She might be able to hide there or lose her pursuers, and while the place might still house arrancar, those at least could be reasoned with. The common Hollow out in the sands didn't want to lose their prize, though, and they kept ambushing her.

Cutting down a few more Hollow, Hisana was hit from behind by a punch that threw her to the ground. She barely avoided follow up blows by rolling through the sand, kicking a Hollow that loomed over her and jumping to her feet. Spotting a ruin of white stone nearby, Hisana sprinted for it. _Maybe if I can hide and get airborne I can outrun these bastards._

The ruins turned out to be the remains of a tower. Most of it had crumbled and sunk into the sand, but the lower levels remained relatively intact. Running inside, Hisana found a few Hollow waiting, but dispatched them easily and dashed up the stairs. The sounds of pursuit faded and Hisana started to hope that maybe she'd escape.

Emerging onto the highest remaining level Hisana glanced around, wary. The ceiling had crumbled but most of the walls were partially intact, creating a sort of open-air room with a decent view of the surrounding area through the empty window frames that circled the tower room.

Panting and gingerly pressing a hand to the burning pain in her side, Hisana almost didn't notice the room's other occupant. Sitting cross-legged in the exact center of the room with his back to her was a tall, broad-shouldered man with straight gray hair that fell to his shoulders. She hadn't spotted him at first because he wore a long white coat, his garb making him blend in with the pale stone of the tower.

As Hisana's eyes fell on him, though, she heard the man breathe sharply in surprise and rise to his feet. He had a sword at his side, a broad scimitar with no sheath. The grip was wrapped in red leather with a blue tassel hanging from the guard, as colorful as his clothes were not. Then he turned to her. His face was lined and swarthy, dark eyes glittering in the moonlight. He looked old, his weathered skin betraying advanced age. His bushy mustache was the same gray as his hair. His skin tone and features reminded her of a Persian. His coat was open in the front, and he wore no undershirt, revealing scarred skin stretched over hard muscle, the body almost seeming to belong to a younger man than the face. Baggy white trousers and white boots adorned his legs and feet.

Hisana's mind processed his appearance in a moment, but her eyes didn't leave the one feature that pronounced him to be other than human. In the center of his forehead was an oval of smooth bone jutting from his skin; coming to a point at the edges, it almost resembled a third eye socket. But it held no eye, only an empty black hole that appeared to pass all the way through his skull. Hisana's breath froze in her throat. _An arrancar!_

"Huh. A shinigami…" the old arrancar said in a gravelly voice, sounding slightly surprised. "You're a long way from home."

He took a few steps toward Hisana and then paused as the Hollow pursuing her chose that moment to pour forth from the stairway into the room. A look of irritation crossed the old arrancar's face and his body began to shimmer slightly. The ruined tower was filled with the most powerful, oppressive reiatsu Hisana had ever felt in her life. It was far stronger than her aunt or the captain she had fought, and more sinister than either. She could see the air distort under the strength of the arrancar's aura. It was like a ton of weight on her shoulders, and it forced Hisana to her knees. She couldn't stand, could barely keep from falling flat on her face by bracing her arms on the floor. The reiatsu was pervasive, battering at her mind, her very sense of self. In an instant she felt like she was six years old again, being scolded for breaking one of her father's things. The power pressing at her carried an aura of stately disdain. _You are a disappointment,_ it whispered. _You will never be anything of value. You are a waste of effort. Useless._ Worst of all, it was her stepfather's voice she heard in her head, stern and unforgiving.

Helpless, Hisana expected the arrancar or the Hollows to finish her off, but when the reiatsu faded she was still in one piece. Looking up, she saw that most of the Hollow had been disintegrated entirely and the survivors were fleeing, some even jumping out of windows to get away. The arrancar looked somewhat disappointed to see Hisana on her knees, gasping for breath. "A weak shinigami," he added to his earlier statement.

Hisana didn't get the chance to make a retort because the arrancar vanished in a quiet burst of static, appearing right in front of Hisana. His hands reached for her, and Hisana gasped in alarm, bringing up her zanpakuto to defend herself. Without changing expression his hand closed around Kaze no Megami and squeezed. The blades and mask shattered like cheap porcelain and his grip tightened around her wrist before she could pull away.

Hisana struggled to pull her hand out of his grip, but it was like fighting a steel vise. Forcing what reiatsu she had left into her free hand she punched him under the ribs as hard as she could. It was like striking a wall. She tried a knee to the groin like she had with Yumichika, only to hit something unyielding enough that her leg went numb for a moment.

"Are you done yet?" the old arrancar rumbled. Hisana felt growing anger at the amused expression on his face.

_Yeah, laugh it up you geezer,_ she thought as she extended an index finger at his face. "Byakurai!" she yelled, firing the white bolt of energy right into his left eye. It didn't seem to do any damage, but he did growl something in a language Hisana didn't understand and release his grip on her arm to cover his eye. She didn't waste any time; she turned and ran, jumping out a window and into the open air.

Hisana felt the arrancar's foul reiatsu surge behind her, but she was far enough away that it didn't incapacitate her. It flooded her spiritual senses to the point that she almost didn't sense the new arrivals. With a burst of static, two more arrancar materialized in front of her.

"Razul! Fatima! Catch her!" came the voice of the old arrancar behind her.

Fatima was a curvaceous, dusky-skinned woman with a full head of long, wavy brown hair, wide, glittering brown eyes and a wicked smile partially obscured by a near-transparent veil that fell from her mask fragment, which started in front of each ear and curved down to meet at the back of her neck. Her hollow hole went straight through the center of her neck. Fatima was wearing a garment of diaphanous white silk only marginally more opaque than the veil that whispered over her skin and covered her from neck to ankle but left little to the imagination. The white cloth sash that held her sword was the only piece of cloth on her body that couldn't be seen through. Hisana found herself blushing just looking at the outfit.

Razul was taller than the old man, and incredibly muscular. His short, curly hair and eyes were ebony, and his skin was a darker brown than the other two. There was a cruel twist to his lips as he looked at Hisana. His Hollow hole was in the usual place through the chest. Razul wore nothing from the waist up save for his mask fragment, a plate that covered the right side of his forehead and disappeared into his hairline. All he wore were boots, baggy white trousers and a black belt that held his sword, a scimitar even bigger than the old man's.

"At once, King Cyrus!" both said, lunging at Hisana.

"Oh, hell," Hisana muttered, ducking under the big guy's open arms and kicking the woman in the face, darting past them and fleeing. She could feel the arrancar chasing her. When they didn't catch up quickly, Hisana glanced back. "King" Cyrus, the old guy, had apparently decided not to join the chase, but the other two were keeping pace with her.

Since Razul and Fatima had arrived from the direction of Las Noches, Hisana abandoned the idea of seeking refuge there. Instead she struck out away from the ruins and Las Noches.

_I hope I find something soon,_ Hisana thought grimly, exhaustion weighing on her. _I'm tired and hurt, and these two are neither. If I can't lose them, they'll catch me._

Less than an hour later, mind numb with fatigue, Hisana missed a step, and Fatima caught up with her. Hisana's back exploded with pain as the female arrancar's blade sliced her from shoulder to waist. She fell, landing hard on the sand below. With a pained groan Hisana rolled over in time to see the tip of Fatima's blade plunging toward her Saketsu, the arrancar's eyes glittering with malice as she aimed to cripple Hisana, an attack she was too hurt and wasted to dodge. _This is it…_

In another burst of static, a blur of white and green interposed itself between Fatima and Hisana. The teenage shinigami got a glance of a busty woman with green hair and a kind face, sword in hand. Then she passed out, utterly spent from all the fighting and running without any rest.

* * *

After sparing a curious glance at the wounded young shinigami Cyrus' Fraccion had been chasing, Nel held her blade in front of her horizontally, her hazel eyes regarding the wary pair of Fatima and Razul with cold detachment. "Go home," she said simply.

"Not happening," Fatima growled. "The shinigami is ours. King Cyrus' orders."

"Two of us, one of you, Nelliel," Razul grated. "You're in no position to threaten us."

Nel shook her head. Something about the shinigami girl was familiar, and in any case, anything Cyrus wanted badly enough to let his dogs chase this close to her home was something she wanted to deny him. "Last chance to walk away," Nel warned.

"Sink deep, Serpiente Latigo!" _[Serpent Whip]_ Razul yelled. Poison green reiatsu exploded around him, and his mask fragment dissolved, reforming as a frame around his face, resembling the open mouth of a snake about to strike, complete with a pair of long fangs curving down above his forehead. His forearms were sheathed in white bracers, and from the top of each bracer two long, segmented tendrils emerged, glowing green and lashing angrily.

"Blur, Titiritero," _[Puppet Master] _Fatima called. Her mask fragment and veil vanished entirely, and her whole body became as gauzy and transparent as her veil had been. Her hands twisted and distorted, each finger growing to a bladed talon half a meter in length.

Nel sighed. She was far stronger than either of them, and on her own she could have simply released her Resurreccion and wiped the floor with them, but judging by the low level of reiatsu Nel could sense in the wounded shinigami behind her, going full power this close to her would probably kill the poor thing.

Razul came at her, tendrils swinging. Nel dodged them and fired a cero from her fingertip, only to see it pass right through Razul and blow up an unoffending sand dune behind him. Fatima's hand was on Razul's shoulder, and she smirked at Nel as she let go. Razul's tendrils snaked towards Nel, and she was forced to retreat. Razul's poison was dangerous even to an arrancar of her power, and Fatima's Resurreccion ability to make herself and anything she touched intangible at will made fighting the pair of Fraccion hazardous.

While Razul kept Nel on the defensive, Fatima went for the shinigami. Nel just jumped over Razul's tendrils and kicked him in the face, using the beefy Fraccion's body as a springboard, propelling herself towards Fatima. The other woman sensed Nel coming and went intangible as Nel's blade passed through her chest, but that meant she couldn't grab Hisana either, her hands passing through the girl's arms and chest. Fatima growled in frustration and jumped away.

Nel couldn't get a killing blow in on Razul or Fatima, but she could frustrate their efforts to incapacitate her and take the shinigami girl. It came down to a stalemate, which suited her just fine. Her reinforcements were closer than theirs.

Sure enough, a minute later Nel felt a new arrival burst onto the scene, dropping out of sonido in front of Razul and punching him in the face before Fatima could save him. Razul went flying, and his assailant flexed. His appearance was ridiculous on the surface, a muscular male arrancar who looked like an arrival from the age of disco. His white uniform had puffy lining at shoulder and hip, and a pair of punch daggers adorned his wrists. He had a huge orange afro, a brown soul patch on his chin and hard gray eyes that looked out from under a mask fragment resembling a visor resting on his forehead, a blue star in the middle and four teeth above each eye. "Is this it, Nelliel?" Gantenbainne Mosqueda asked with some disappointment in his voice. "Cyrus' punk Fraccion? I was hoping I'd get to fight one of his idiot Nuevo Espada at least." Fatima and Razul backed off a bit, looking wary at facing two Espada instead of just one.

"You may still get the chance, Ganty," Nel replied. "Besides, these two morons were chasing something interesting."

"Man, how many times I gotta ask you not to call me that Nelliel? It sounds silly," Gantenbainne complained before he glanced over his shoulder. His eyes widened when he saw Hisana lying on the sand. "A shinigami? What the heck is a shinigami doing here?"

"I'd love to find out, Ganty, but first we need to chase off Cyrus' dogs," Nel said sweetly.

That proved to be unnecessary. Fatima and Razul decided that discretion was the better part of valor and disappeared in a burst of static. "I'll follow them; make sure they leave our territory. You take the shinigami home," Gantenbainne offered. Nel nodded. The afro arrancar took off after the fleeing Fraccion with a grin.

Nel carefully scooped up the shinigami girl in her arms, sighing sadly as she got a better look at the teen's injuries. She was hurt all over, and the most recent wound on her back was still bleeding. Moving quickly and gently, Nel took off towards her tower. "Hold on just a bit more, little shinigami," she murmured kindly. Hisana stirred softly in her arms.


End file.
